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Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffTreatment for spinal headaches begins conservatively. Your doctor may recommend bed rest and oral pain relievers. If your headache hasn't improved within 24 hours, your doctor may suggest one or more of the following treatments:
- Epidural blood patch. Injecting a small amount of your blood into the space over the puncture hole will often form a clot to seal the hole, restoring normal pressure in the spinal fluid and relieving your headache.
- Intravenous caffeine. Delivered directly into your bloodstream, caffeine helps relieve spinal headaches — usually within a few hours — by constricting blood vessels within your head.
- Epidural saline. Injecting a saltwater solution into the space outside the membrane that covers your spinal cord may put pressure on the lumbar puncture site and stop the cerebrospinal fluid leak. But because saline solution is absorbed so quickly by the body, spinal headaches often recur after this treatment.
