Right, it was leaking on the inside, so we couldn’t tell on the outside. They try to prevent it by having you lay absolutely flat for four hours right after the lumbar puncture, which is supposed to help the fluid stay level and give the hole time to scab over and begin healing. It works for most people, but not everyone. Sometimes it sucks to be the exceptional one!
I’ve decided that whenever we have kids, I’m not having an epidural unless it’s absolutely necessary. There’s no way childbirth hurts worse than that, and at least it’s pain that is supposed to happen.
gotpasswords: That sounds awful. I’m glad my blood patch only required one more poke in my spine.
I appreciate the well-wishes. I’m feeling a lot better today. I still have slight soreness in my lower back, and I get a minor stab of pain in my head if I cough. I think I’m still a little bruised in there.
ICK!! I’ve got the migraine thing and all that…I can’t imagine a worse headache. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m glad you’re starting to feel better. I hope your test is clear! After all of this, it had better be!
I had a spinal headache after a hysterectomy, and it honestly is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. Add to that throwing up repeatedly when you’ve just been cut open from hip to hip, and I was pretty miserable. The dolt who performed it (against my OBGYN’s instructions :eek: ) shrugged when I said I didn’t drink coffee or pop and walked out. He didn’t give me the blood patch.
As I said above, most people don’t require it because the puncture closes on its own. The blood patch is more painful and traumatic than necessary for those people. It’s just the unlucky few that need it.
I don’t think everyone who has migraines necessarily develops brain lesions. It’s possible though, if you have them badly enough for long enough (and maybe depending on what kinds of migraines a person has, and what causes them), so that’s the neurologist’s theory about what showed up on my MRI. If that’s what they are, the lesions are harmless battle scars.
I’m thinking that my brain is one big fat scar.
However, having an MRI three and a half years ago turned up nothing shaddup. unusual.
**[Minor Hijack in A minor] **
As for the migraine thrillride, I’ve started a supplement approach of co-q10, magnesium and Vitamin B Wiki to the rescue. as all the scouring I have done online have all pointed on this daily threesome. (All based on searching for preventatives based on availability and affordability.) So, today, I started it.
[/hijack]
An update: I got my test results back, and I probably have MS after all.
I have an appointment March 5th with a MS specialist in the Medical Center. (Houston is an excellent place to get dread diseases. We have world-renowned experts in everything.) It looks like we caught it early since I have no symptoms, so if the specialist agrees with my neurologist that it really is MS, I can start medication. I’ll give myself regular injections of whatever medication they give me, and hopefully slow any progression of the disease. Untreated, I might not have had any symptoms for years. With treatment, there’s a decent chance that we can slow it down so much that I won’t exhibit any symptoms for a long time, maybe 20 years or more. And who knows what they’ll be able to do for MS that far in the future? Every case of MS is different, but hopefully I’m not one of the ones who have a really bad, progressive case. I’m upset, but hopeful that it won’t be horribly debilitating. I can still work, and it won’t affect my ability to have kids. I also have excellent health insurance, for which I’m very grateful. But still: blerg. This isn’t the news I wanted.
The bad news is you may have MS, the good news is they know it and can start treating it. It has been over 2 years for me and they still don’t know why I have holes in my brain.
Good luck with things. And don’t give up. A friend with MS had her neurologist look at an MRI once, then look at her and ask how she was still walking, she had so many lesions. She was not only walking, she was raising 3 kids, 1 grandkid, and working 8 hours a day in a factory. Her diagnosis since then has been changed to progressive, but she is still hanging in there.
