Hi everyone, I just found this board today and hope that someone can help me out. I have a 15 year old son who's had a shunt for 15 years, he's had it replaced once, 5 years ago.

For the last 2 weeks Josh has had a headache. He's had the x-rays and a CAT scan and they haven't shown anything but he still has the headache. Josh doesn't normally get headaches. Spina Bifida clinic was closed last week and will re-open tomorrow so if it continues I'm going to call first thing in the morning to see if I can bring him in. Has anyone ever heard of these tests coming back okay and it still being a shunt problem? This morning his head didn't hurt so we'll see if it's better or just woke up feeling better.

Any help you can give me would be great, I'm stumped on this one.

Hi there,
Im sorry to hear about your son feeling unwell.
I had a VP shunt for 16 years, which was fitted when i was 13 months. As of friday just gone, im now a VA shuntee.
When it malfunctioned when i was 4 years old, all tests that were done on me came back fine. However i soon went into a coma, even then, tests came back showing no signs of shunt malfunctions other than the physical signs and symptoms, vomiting, headaches, irritability etc.

In september just gone, i was at Great oromond street to have a routine eye check to see whether this was the cause of the gradual onset of headaches over the years. These tests came back fine, until september, when papilledema showed up. Strange thing being that i hadnt felt better in a long time, yet this is the only time where evidence of intercranial pressure has showed up.
I was fitted with an ICP monitor and after a few hours after surgery, i again showed the symptoms i had when i was 4 years old.
I also then went into the state that i was in back then too, the coma. I was taken to an emergency CT scan, there was no change in the scans or xray series.
Yet it was clear i was having a shunt malfunction.
In surgery the pressure was so so high that when they drilled into my head, fluid flew across the theatre at such power.

I suggest an opthamologist eye test if possible and or ICP monitoring. =)

Good luck to you and your son

Thanks for your response. On Monday he'll be going to the IWK in Halilfax for a MRI and then will see our Neurosurgeon, I think we'll be getting admitted till they get to the bottom of this.

where u from
go to the local hospital and demand them to do a shunt gram