Objective: To find out the effects of low dose ketamine versus ketorolac on spinal headache and post-operative back & leg pain in patients undergoing elective cesarean section.

Methods: This is a double-blind randomized clinical trial. Convenient sampling was used and the patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomly assigned to one of two groups: either low dose IV ketamine (group A) (32 patients) or IV ketorolac (group B) (32 patients), using a computer-generated random numbers table. In both groups, the incidence of headache and its severity at 01, 4, 12, and 24 hours postoperatively and back and leg pain within 2 weeks postoperatively were also recorded. The severity of the headache was measured using the numeric pain rating scale (NPRS) for pain, and for back and leg pain, low back pain rating scale.

Results: The mean age in ketamine group is 26.53±4.53 and ketorolac group is 26.53±4.00. There was significant improvement (<0.005) in spinal headache and post-operative back and leg pain in ketamine group.

Conclusion: There is more improvement in spinal headache and post-operative back and leg pain in ketamine group and have more side effects as compare to ketorolac group.

Index Terms- Ketamine, ketorolac, spinal headache, cesarean