The Relief of Unilateral Painful Thoracic Radiculopathy without Headache from Remote Spontaneous Spinal Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak.

We report a 67-year-old female who presented with chronic, positional radicular right T11 pain. Computed tomography myelography showed a spontaneous lumbar spinal CSF leak at L2-3 and repeated lumbar epidural blood patches significantly alleviated chronic, positional, and lower thoracic radiculopathic pain. The authors speculate that a chronic spontaneous spinal CSF leak not severe enough to cause typical orthostatic headache or epidural CSF collection may cause local symptoms such as irritation of a remote nerve root. There might be considerable variabilities in the clinical features of SIH which can present a diagnostic challenge. PMID: 27445613 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Pain Research and Management - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Pain Res Manag Source Type: research