A 42-year-old British woman suffered from brain fluid leak, with persistent and worsening headaches, after attending a Pilates class.
The doctors who examined her found that the woman was showing symptoms of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak, wherein the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord are escaping. Other symptoms aside from headaches include vision changes and hearing loss, although the woman didn't display these other symptoms since the leak was coming from her spinal cord.
"The most common cause [of such leaks is] trauma, like a car accident," Dr. Amber Luong, an otolaryngologist at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, told Live Science.
In the woman's case, it might be her Pilates stretch that caused nerve trauma. She said that her headaches began an hour after the stretching and resistance exercises using straps and ropes. She also recalled hearing a pop on the left side of her neck during the session.
The doctors initially diagnosed her with a neck injury and was given medications, but that didn't improve her headaches. She then had brain scans at the King's College Hospital in London, where doctors saw the brain fluid leaking from two spots outside her brain.
Luong added that overweight and older people are vulnerable to brain fluid leak due to high pressure in the skull.
The doctors failed to pinpoint the part of the brain that leaked, but the patient has successfully recovered after two weeks of bed rest and pain relievers.
Other reports have linked brain fluid leak to yoga exercises, but this is the first to cite Pilates, according to Medscape News. Spontaneous spinal leak is rare, but it is recently becoming a common cause of headaches affecting one in every 50,000.
The case was published in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.
