I’ve been looking through the archives for information on this topic, but I can’t seem to find any. Ryan had a craniotomy to get rid of his AVM last Monday (the 23rd) and since then, he’s had a fever that has needed Tylenol to control on a daily basis. The fever goes up and down daily. At some points it’s just above normal, and at others it’s over 101. Is this normal? The neurosurgeon doesn’t have an answer and all of the cultures came back negative, so they don’t think he has an infection. Anyone else experience this after a craniotomy?
About 2 weeks after my craniotomy, I had a fever, followed buy the worst diarrhea I ever had. For 3 weeks, while trying to recover from brain surgery I was unable to keep any food down. Doctors said the vomiting and diarrhea was from a C-dif infection I picked up in the hospital. Definitely have hime tested to see. People pick up so many infections in hospitals and some are very dangerous. Good Luck!
Yeah while I was in hospital after my bleed and craniotomy i caught a few bugs and remember having a fever. it is easy to pick up infections whilst in a hospital
I don’t have an answer as to why, but I had a fever 2 days after surgery that lasted off and on for about a month. Doctors didn’t know why and fed me Tylenol. Water helped a bit.
Kelly,
So incredibly glad to hear Ryan’s surgery went well. I am sorry that he had the complication of fever and dehydration. Trevor did have a fever after surgery and it starting creeping up and we were so nervous. He also had some bp issues too. The fever lasted a couple days but after that, nothing. I wonder if it has something to do with the trauma the body has just endured and the body is in overdrive to try and fix it. Also even though the surgeons are as sterile as possible maybe just be virtue of exposing the inside of the body to the outside world, perhaps the air itself has something in it that potentially causes an infection. Just theories. I can so easily drum up those feelings waiting in the waiting room and then after sitting by Trevor watching him wondering how he would respond. I thank our surgeons and God everyday for the wonderful outcome. You have been in my prayers and will continue to be.
Thank you, Alyse!
We just got home from Ryan’s staple removal appointment. All went well. He still has that low-grade fever, and they think it might be caused by his Dilantin. I’m not inclined, though, to change him to Keppra because we tried that before and he got aggressive. We’re going to keep him hydrated and keep checking his temp to make sure it doesn’t climb too high, and if it does, we’ll go from there.
Thanks for your comments and prayers, everyone!
Alyse (Trevor’s mom) said:
Kelly,
So incredibly glad to hear Ryan’s surgery went well. I am sorry that he had the complication of fever and dehydration. Trevor did have a fever after surgery and it starting creeping up and we were so nervous. He also had some bp issues too. The fever lasted a couple days but after that, nothing. I wonder if it has something to do with the trauma the body has just endured and the body is in overdrive to try and fix it. Also even though the surgeons are as sterile as possible maybe just be virtue of exposing the inside of the body to the outside world, perhaps the air itself has something in it that potentially causes an infection. Just theories. I can so easily drum up those feelings waiting in the waiting room and then after sitting by Trevor watching him wondering how he would respond. I thank our surgeons and God everyday for the wonderful outcome. You have been in my prayers and will continue to be.
Glad to hear all went relatively well for Ryan. About a week after my craniotomy I developed a fever. Mine started low and kept creeping up. I had meningitis from the surgery. I was very sick though and my fever went as high as 106. If Ryan's fever is low grade and he's not otherwise feeling unwell I'm sure it's not that. Also, I would think his doctors have already ruled that out. Best wishes to Ryanb on his continued recovery.
Dave,
The low-grade fevers did stop after a while. The fevers got more and more slight until they just stopped altogether. It maybe took a couple of weeks, but they steadily went down to normal. I figured as long as they weren’t getting worse and since the cultures came back negative, I’d just keep an eye on it. Hope this helps!