I saw my neurologist yesterday, the one who worked with Dr. Oro. She thinks I need to get a spinal tap done. She said it's possible the pressure is to high inside my head. I told her about my horrible epidural experience and then my horrible blood patch experience. She said she was actually in clinicals for november because she is the attending and would likely be in there when they did the actual spinal tap. I asked her if she was sure it was okay since I have the chiari and she said absolutely, because I am having to many symptoms that do not fall into the "migraine" category. She said my flow study was normal and that we needed to see what was going on with the pressure in my head and test for infection, bacteria, fungus, protiens, glucose, and some other stuff and the only way to do that was to do the spinal tap.
I am so NOT looking forward to that. I am totally expecting it to be as horrible as the epidural experience was. I am going to be extremely firm with them about my chiari and making sure they do it SLOWLY.
Anyone want to share their spinal tap story. Good or bad...said online up to 25% get the bad headache. I'm absolutely positive I'll be included in that.
I had a spinal tap done by a real 'winner'......He actually had me and his secretary walk over to the hospital with CSF in hand to bring it to the lab..immediately after the 'tap'...he would not let me drive b/c he had to have one of his staff with the CSF..more worried about liability concerning me driving with her and my CSF than me..it was pouring rain out!!! The walk was not very long..but long enough....she left me there...the lab tech then took 8 tubes of blood..then I stumbled, alone, back to the NL's office, where my car was....he was a real piece of work...and to add insult to injury he was very, very hard to understand b/c of his broken English...that I could have handled easier if he hadn't been arrogant, inempt and to boot...looks like Moe from the 3 Stooges!!!!! This NL had No redeeming qualities!!!LOL
The next day was hell......major H/A....He did take out 6 tubes of CSF....but after the H/A got somewhat better..I was ok. See, he was trying to 'PROVE" that it was not Chiari nor the Lyme Disease I was then being Tx'd for by a Lyme Dr...that was the cause of all these Sx's....His arrogance got the best of him......nothing came out of all those tubes of CSF, nor the bloood.
But the good news is..nothing bad happened.
let me know if you have any more questions that i may be able to answer.
I had one done a few weeks ago and it was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be. All my results came back fine and there still was no answer to the pressure in my head. I hope that you have a good experience. My NL was wonderful and it was just uncomfortable.
I'm sorry you had to deal with all that. I couldn't imagine. My NL told me yesterday they were only going to take 6cc of fluid so it isn't going to be much. Glad to hear that your recovery wasn't to awful bad.
Thanks for letting me know how your experience went Nicolee. :) I feel an intense pressure in my head at certain times or during certain things like stretching or bending over. I made a huge list and gave it to her yesterday. That's when she decided I needed the spinal tap. I'm very nervous. When I had my epidural 2.5 years ago it took 7 tries, yes 7 tries!!! It was HORRIBLE! :(