Flying after surgery

Hi everyone,
Is it safe to fly just 5 months after my surgery/clipping of ruptured aneurysm. My doctor has said “yes.” Any experiences with travelling after the surgery?

Thank you

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Yes totally safe, I traveled 4 months after my surgery. Just make sure you hydrate as always!

Thank you kiki2. I am planning to go to the beach…I hope that I am not being careless.
Alma

I just did a round trip flight from NC to DC. Last year I flew from NC to Seattle, round trip. The cabin is pressurized so there’s no issue. There are some really good old posts on this site that a pilot had respond to on flying. You can access them by doing a search here.

Thank you for your response Moltrub.
Alma

Sammy1,

Unfortunately for me, I had damage to my ear as result of SAH. So, sudden pressure has an affect on my ear resulting in a lot of pain. So, I use ear plugs to control the pressure during ascent and descent. There was another survivor on this board who also had damage to the ear during the SAH and had similar experience. If you had damage to the ear, I would seek additional advice from the medical community as I had to learn the hard way. Best of luck. Freedom to travel is a sign of independence and recovery

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Thank you for bringing this to my attention 2Fight. I will check with my doctor .

Take care
Alma

Hey I went through the same thing, clip and all. I asked my Brain surgeon about flying and he said no problem. This happened 21 years ago. All is still good !

I had 3 pipeline stents put in on right side in June 2016 and then 2 more put in on left side in July 2016 and flew to Hungary in August 2016. My doctor said go for it just don’t let anything hit you in the head…I think he was joking. Had a great time! No trouble with flying.

Wow, it’s very interesting to read all those different posts here. For me, I experienced the ‘worst’ headache during the flight ---- including the incidental finding of my unruptured Aneurysm. Strange!

I took the advice from my doctor, he said "Sure, you may fly’… And, I flew from LA to Boston a month and a half after my clipping. I felt ok for the first 3 hours. However, from the 3rd hour on until we landed on Atlantic (then xfer to Boston), I felt the worst headache (which was really unbearable). It was more painful than post surgery!

I couldn’t do a thing while on the plane. I wasn’t even prepared for the heavy headache because I didn’t bring any pain killers with me. I was so sure that it should be OK… :frowning:

My induced headache was not tamed from then until 10 months later. Boston’s bad weather was also not helping me. Therefore, I decided to fly back to California. This time, I learned NOT to take flights which fly more than 3 hours a leg. I even stayed in Chicago for one night then transfer to LA.

I hope you are not like me. I regretted taking a flight that soon. If you want to test if your head could take the air-pressure change, then please drive to a high mountain for a test. A newer plane (carbon-material?) would give you a 6000ft altitude equivalent air pressure in the airplane cabin (while it flies to 30,000 ft!) This is like to hike up a mountain of 6000ft. Cabine pressure is lower than the sea level but not much lower to trigger migraines (for me). An older plane would give you a 7■■■■ ft altitude equivalent air pressure (which is much lower than 6000 ft air pressure).

I do better with shorter flights and coffee does tame my headache once triggered. It is two years and four months after my clipping and I believe I can take another flight back to Boston now. :smiley:

Good luck to you!!

I took a cross country (usa) flight about 6 weeks after my clipping surgery. My surgeon had no concerns about me flying, and it all went very well. Nothing special to report!

I flew from boston to jamaica four months after craniotomy and clipping. No problems at all.
Headaches were my biggest concern and I took plenty of migraine meds with me, but didn’t need them!
Good luck!

Thank you for replying! Great to hear that all is good!

What if you have an unruptured aneurysm?

Awesome!

Can I fly with an unreptured aneurysm? The surgeon said they could not clip it. Clipped the 3 that ruptured but can not get to the unruptured one.

Great!

I am sorry that you didn’t have a nice flying experience. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lol…doctors and their jokes. Thank you for sharing.

Wow… unruptured aneurysm could rupture anytime, flying or not. (Sorry for this, even sneezing bursts aneurysms. Sigh!)

It is the surgery that brought ‘air pockets’ that cause the pressure equivalence in our brains. Some scalps are very strong, and mine is not. I have a paper-thin scalp. Maybe that is why I experienced the worst headache ever during the flights.