Headache from Brain Mets or just overreacting? - 1273103

stage4gf
Posts:4

My boyfriend John had four brain mets that were treated with Gamma Knife radiation on 2/4. They were small, the largest was 1.5cm and he had no symptoms at the time. He was on dexadron and just finished tapering off of it last week. In the last week or two, he's had an occasional headache along the sides of his head. At first we thought it might be tension, anxiety, stress related. It would come on towards the middle of the day. Then Saturday he started to get it just on the right side of his head, down to his jaw and his ear. All of his mets are primarily on the right side. However, he broke his nose years ago and can get bad sinus issues and our weather has been crazy this week. Excedrin made the headache go away and last night he took Sudafed and woke up without a headache. He's dropped his keys and phone a few times in the last two weeks. Are we just paying attention to every little thing? He doesn't have any other neuro symptoms. Is this just from getting of decadron, sinus and normal life and not brain mets? I hate how cancer makes us irrational and hypochondriacs about everything!

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JimC
Posts: 2753

Hi stage4gf,

Welcome to GRACE. I'm sorry to hear of your boyfriend's headaches, but based on the timing it seems likely that they are either non-cancer related (as you've speculated) or perhaps a residual effect of the radiated brain mets which will clear up shortly. Radiation doesn't vaporize brain mets the way things get vaporized in sci-fi movies; it takes a while for them to go away.

It's also possible that the steroid taper was a bit too fast. Each patient is different, so standard taper schedules don't work the same for everyone. That might be something to discuss with her doctor.

I hope the headaches clear up soon.

JimC
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