Journal of Anesthesiology and Pain

   Introduction: Although its prevalence has reduced since introduction of small size spinal needles, post dural puncture headache is a still a common problem in young women. Headache could appear several hours to seven days after dural puncture, and could be a cause for delayed hospital discharge. (There are several methods for prevention and treatment of this side effect such as complete bed rest, hydration, non-opioid analgesics, caffeine, codeine, which none of them proved to be totally effective. The last option would be epidural blood patch).
Methods and Materials: Sixty parturients aged 18-45 years old in American Society of Anesthesiologist (ASA) class of I or II, who had no past history of headache, analgesic consumption, substance abuse and drug addiction, candidate for elective cesarean section, were randomly assigned into two groups of case (Dexamethasone) and control (Norman saline). The anesthesia method for both groups was precisely the same. After spinal anesthesia 8 mg of intravenous Dexamethasone and 2 ml of intravenous normal saline were infused for case and control groups respectively, then at 1^st, 6^th,18^th and 24^th hours and 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th,6^th and 7^th days post operative, patients were asked about headache.
Results: There were no demographic differences between two groups. The differences of headache prevalence in all times post operative, were sot statistically meaningful between two groups
Conclssion: This study showed that 8mg of intravenous Dexamethasone does not have any significant effect on headache prevalence in parturients after spinal anesthesia for elective cesarean section.