Unilateral Abducens Palsy and Headache in Postpartum Patient Presenting to Ophthalmology

Postpartum patients rarely present to eye casualty. Here we report a case of a seven-day postpartum patient with sudden onset horizontal diplopia and an occipital headache from the perspective of the ophthalmology eye casualty in a tertiary hospital. Intracranial imaging ruled out any acute pathology. The patient required epidural anaesthesia during labour, and a diagnosis of a post-dural puncture headache (PDPH) with an abducens nerve palsy was reached. A blood patch was not provided in this case. The headache settled and the diplopia self-resolved three weeks postpartum. PDPH with extra-ocular muscle paresis is rare, and, as the diplopia onset usually follows the characteristic orthostatic headaches of PDPH, it is likely that these patients are followed up by obstetricians or anaesthetists. These patients rarely present to ophthalmology services to receive this diagnosis, therefore ophthalmologists might not be familiar with this pathology. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of PDPH with cranial nerve palsy that has been documented to present to an ophthalmology department.