As long as its a neurologist, infectious disease doc, or radiologist, its pretty likely that they perform these fairly routinely. I performed well over a 100 of these in my first year of training. The most common side effect is a headache. As mentioned above, stay hydrated and try to lie down for the first hour. The various hospitals I have worked at would monitor patients between 1 and 2 hours. Otherwise, I would take it easy on day one and then resume activities as tolerated. You will have local tenderness at the procedure site. The degree of the tenderness will depend on how easy the puncture is to perform. If you're fairly young and your back is in good shape, it should be relatively easy. The harder the puncture, the more it will depend on the doc performing the procedure.

If you do get a severe headache, the best way to treat is with a blood patch. They take some of your blood and inject it by the lumbar puncture site in order to form a clot at the puncture site. This stops the minor CSF leak that is thought to cause the severe headache. Staying well hydrated prevents the headache by compensating for the fluid loss. Some studies indicate caffeine to help with the headache, although this evidence is very limited.