Did it hurt? What about the next day? Make you cranky and wish to bite the doctor? 'Cause I just found out I need one…
I passed out once and the doctor didn’t know why, so he took some spinal fluid from me. Basically, they numb the area, and stick a longish needle into your spine. The feeling is extremely … strange. You can feel it going in, but it doesn’t hurt.
You’re not allowed to stand up for a few hours, as the decrease in pressure from the lack of fluid can cause severe migraines. Also, the top of your brain will dry out like a piece of old cheese. At least, I assume it will. The doctor never specifically said so.
So, no pain during, no pain after that I recall (maybe a bit sore, but not even Tylenol worthy). Just an odd feeling is all.
I’ve never had one, but have seen several performed during my neurology rotation (med student).
They’ll have you lie on your side and draw your knees to your chest, then they’ll use lignocaine to numb the skin, before putting a needle through the skin and muscle into the space between your vertebra.
You should feel “pressure” rather than pain, and most patients don’t seem to find it that bad. One patient described it as being about half as bad as having a tooth filled.
They only take about 10-15ml of fluid, and since you have about 500mls in there, your brain is in no danger of drying out like old cheese!
Make sure you lie flat for a while afterwards, and ask for some pain killers at the first sign of headache.
The most important thing is to lie still and to keep as curled up as possible during the procedure, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and they do a lot of them, so you will be in safe hands.
One thing to warn you about is that the needle is very long, but you have to remember that it has a long way to go through the skin, fat, muscle and connective tissue.
Good luck, and don’t worry!
Pft! You medical people think you know everything about medically stuff. OLD CHEESE, I TELLS YA!
Also, I’m carrying a few extra pounds (or 40…), and they had to have a burly orderly come in, grab me behind the knees and back of the neck, and bend me, so that the doctor could get a good feel for where my vertebrae were.
So if you’re skinny, you’re good. If you’re not, prepare to be manhandled. And not in the good way.
I had one once as a kid, but it’s been so long I barely remember it.
-Smeghead, providing information-packed posts since 2000.
Starting nitpick - the procedure is more properly called a lumbar puncture, but everyone seems to go for spinal tap. Who am I to argue?
I had one about 12 years ago. It was done by a neurologist and the procedure itself was the classic “Champagne tap” they celebrate now and then on TV shows like ER. In other words, the procedure was flawless. He was in and out, it didn’t hurt, got the sample and was done in a twinkling. He or an assistant told me what to do in case of troubles later on.
I was left to lay flat for an hour and go home. So far so good.
The next morning, I wake up with the worst headache I’ve ever had. I’d heard of migraines, and thought this had to be even worse than one of those. I couln’t keep my eyes open and I could barely stand. So, I get scooped up and taken to the ER. Oh yeah, did I mention that the tap was done on the day before Thanksgiving? Well, I get dropped off, stagger to the window and manage to produce my HMO card, tell them I had a lumbar puncture the day before and that I need a blood patch. I then collapsed. File for future reference: Fainting at the triage desk is a good way to be seen faster. :eek:
The blood patch is something the neurologist mentioned earlier. What happened was for some reason, the hole in the dura didn’t plug up, and spinal fluid was leaking out. It’s not so much that the fluid is going to drain out, leaving my brain to dry out, but the pressure of that whole system was skewed, causing the horrific sensation that my brain was resting on the tops of my teeth. The cure is simple, yet noxious. I needed another tap. :mad: This time around, the plan was to draw some blood from my arm, make the tap, then inject a little blood into the spine to seal the hole.
Only problem was there wasn’t a neurologist available. Guess they were all home cooking their Thanksgiving turkeys. Next up is an anaesthesiologist. They were technically competent, but oh my… The neurologist made just one injection of anaesthetic when he did the tap. The anaesthesiologist made a freaking RING of injections all around the spot. Again and again and AGAIN. And the injections hurt more than you’d expect. By this time I’m howling in pain and screaming with rage to JUST DO THE $#@* PATCH! So, she does. Relief was almost instant. By the time she withdrew the syringe, my body was re-booting and I was feeling human again and could open my eyes. Another hour of laying on my back, and I was well again, with just a smidge of residual ache in my head and back.
The next day, my neurologist calls as by then he’s heard of my ER adventure and apologizes for leaving me in the care of someone perhaps better suited to be a veterinary tech. (Nothing against vet techs, but she was no good with humans.)
Moral to the story: Never schedule any sort of medical procedure the day before a weekend or holiday. If there are complications, you’ll wind up in the care of someone who didn’t have the seniority or wasn’t clever enough to be able to have the day off.
I’ve noticed that this overlaps gotpasswords previous post, but I’ll leave it in anyway. I wasn’t lucky enough to get my hole patched up, mine just healed naturally.
I got tick borne encephalitis last summer, and the first test they did was a Spinal Tap (a.k.a. Lumbar Puncture). I didn’t feel anything at the time, but then I was running an extremely high fever. However, for a week afterwards I could not sit up straight without getting a headache. This is not as fun as it sounds. I thought it was the encephalitis, but it turns out that spinal taps can do this if the ‘hole’ doesn’t close properly and not enough fluid is available for the brain (layman terms, I’m sure). It’s not damaging (apparently), and the young, the thin and females the most susceptible groups.
You have been warned.
They are not kidding about the “spinal headache.” Be very careful, my friend tried to move to soon after the procedure and he experienced unbelievable pain that laid him up for almost a week.
When i had mine, in 1981, I remember being warned in a rather contradictory way that “this was a dangerous procedure that usually goes just fine, but they needed me to sign a consent form in case of any life-altering results which almost never happened…”
I’m not sure I wasn’t misperceiving what they were saying (I was having the spinal tap to investigate a stroke I’d suffered–or was in the process of suffering) or if it was in an experimental stage at that point, but that’s my strongest memory of it.
I had a failed one. It was a fecking nightmare procedure and if I ever need one again, it won’t be done by someone who didn’t know WTF she was doing.
I went into the ER on the second day of a severe migraine. I was dehydrated and needed better pain relief. They stuck me on the ward, told me they would set up a drip and forgot me for several hours. It’s a measure of how sick I was that I didn’t insist on the fluids and let them ignore me.
Then along came the new eager doctor who did all these neurological evaluations and decided I had meningitis. I told her I didn’t and I wasn’t having a lumbar puncture, just give me the drugs and send me home.
So we proceed to the lumbar puncture. Man, she was BAD at it. She poked around in my spine for ages, kept telling me she had done it and then taking the needle out and starting again. Finally I yelled at her to stop. She went and got a senior doctor who agreed with me I had a migraine, I eventually got fluids and went home. Never did get the pain relief though, not even imitrex.
I had one about 20 years ago to test for Multiple Sclerosis - what a double screw job - I got my spine tapped and a week later got told I had MS. (Don’t worry, I am still ambulatory to this day and just got home from my full time job). But be that as it may, and I doubt if it ever was here’s my story…
Yes, get those knees tucked up. Also (remembering all the horror stories people have told me) I NEVER even thought about sitting up after the spinal tap. I remained perfectly motionless after the procedure. I didn’t even THINK of raising my head. Eventually they put a pillow under my head and I told the nurse that she should raise my head.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t have even the slightest headache after the “tap” or even the next day. (Follow their orders. If they say drink lots of fluids then that’s what you do). The only bad effect was that after the novocaine wore off (hours later) my back felt very sore and sensitive. I spent the night curled up in the same position as when I got the spinal tap. I didn’t take aspirin or anything. Next morning? I was fine. No sore back and thank GOD - no headache.
Basically, I think you’ll be okay.
I am not sure if this is the place to mention this but…
I had one for a meningitis test a few years ago. All was okay. It was quite uncomfortable but not what I would call terribly painful. All went well until later that day, at home, I coughed very hard. Apparently the hole opened up again.
Soon thereafter I was overwhelmed with the worst headache I have ever had (and I get cluster headaches so this was shocking) and every time I moved the agony increased. I was taken to hospital later that same day.
Over the next four days I was left to simply lie there in the public hospital (this was in New Zealand) in an ever increasing agony. I tried on several occasions to get checked out and taken to a private facility. This was declined. For the pain I was not given more than paracetemol. It did not even touch the sides of the pain. In fact the pain was getting progressively worse. The only relief I found was in lying absoutely still - which reduced it to a terrible agony.
After some days, and a steadily worsening condition, I was finally checked out and a friend took me to a neurologist in private practice. He simply took blood and used it to patch the hole in my spine - injecting it over the site of the spinal tap. The pain quickly diminished and was gone within hours.
He was furious with the hospital for treating me in that fashion. He told me it was very dangerous and even life-threatening.
Having said all that I am not familiar with anyone else who suffered anything similar and perhaps this is a rare occurence. Just thought people ought to know.
And here I thought this was about sex with a comic band.
My bad.
That’s what they think I have. It was a frickin’ party going back to work after that dr.'s visit.
So, yes, now comes the Mother of All Test Batteries. 2 MRIs (with dye), lumbar puncture, blood tests, nerve conduction, blah blah blah. What I’d really like is a test that asks me to evaluate the deliciousness of chocolate and whiskey.
inkleberry
Needless to say, I sure hope you don’t have MS. I’m surprised after all these years that they haven’t discovered a simpler test for MS. (Detecting it in a urine sample would be great and a lot less of a hassle).
Anyway, even if you do get that diagnosis I’d say about one third of MS cases are like mine - occassional flare-ups but relatively stable. In my case, as well as other people, I get fatigued much more easily. Still, as I’ve said, I still can work a full-time job.
I hope everything works out well for you.
My friend with MS had his diagnosed with an MRI which showed lesions on the brain.