Sorry you had such a rough time with your LP.

Even under Fluroscopy, it was the worst test out of them all. He kept telling me to relax. I told him that I hate needles and the idea of sticking one in my back scared the you know what out of me.

I'm also interested in the answer of Sally's question since I swore I would never go through that again.

Hi Sally! I had 2 lp's for totally different reasons. One was for dx and the other was to check for meningitis when I was really sick long ago.

OMG!! That is awful.

Just convinced me to never do that procedure again. My neuro suggested repeating some past tests if my MRI changes sometime to see if there were early false negatives. We will just be scratching ye olde LP off that list! I had enough fun under fluro getting nerve zapped (felt like electicity separated me right down the butt crack) and then got the dreaded headache, too.



Glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read this line.

Wow, your procedure doesn't sound like it was much fun either. I started getting a headache when I was sitting up and then had to drive over an hour back home afterward. My head felt all funny, but I kept hydrating and went flat on my back for the rest of the day and night. Luckily, I didn't get a headache. I heard they're miserable.

That sounds awful! I hope you at least get the answers you need after that experience!

Jeez! I wonder if we had the same neuro!

My one and only LP was an absolute disaster. It took the guy 5 tries, I was begging for the fluoroscopy, I had to sit on the table and lean forward, turned into a drawing board beforehand, etc! I could feel him digging around for the cord. It truly felt like someone had their fingers on my spinal cord and was tugging on it!

He finally got in and said" it's running very slow and I yelled "DO NOT TAKE IT OUT!!!!"

I very calmly asked if there was anything I could do to help speed it up and he nervously said " you could laugh"...and I lost it laughing. He was as nervous as I was! Spinal fluid shot all over the place and we got the sample, but I will NEVER have another one.

Sorry to hear yours was so bad! I certainly hope he got what he needed and that you never have to go through that again!

your story is AWFUL.
i wonder if that "dr" was inexperienced and they didn't tell you that.

for anyone reading this IMHO,
anyone who goes for an LP should have it done under floroscopy.
the usual position is laying flat on your stomach.

the dr should be a radiologist and/or experienced in doing the procedure.

i can't stress enuf that you SHOULD ASK Q's. interview the center, hospital, dr. if you're not happy with the answers STOP. you don't have to submit to anything.

and, make sure that they are going to run the right tests. some folks have had lp's only to find out they didn't test for O-bands. handy to have your dr's orders on a prescription sheet to give to the dr doing the test.

sheeh, this makes me so angry for what you went thru.

Judy,

Thanks. Good advice for people.

I began to suspect that the guy was lying to me when he told me he'd done well over 100 LPs. I think that if he actually did, he did them on the LPs through the hole in the middle where the spindle went. At least he didn't practice on 45s. Seriously, how do you check to see if someone's experienced when they say they are unless it's afterwards? There was no way that I was going to let a med student do it.

*sigh* The only thing I'm happy about is that it's over, I'm nearly back to normal, and I'll get results.

Gazelle, my eyes are not working properly this morning so I apologize. What IS that in your avatar? I'm sure it's something quite obvious but my eyes are just not seein' it!

I asked my neuro surgeon how many ACDFs he'd done and he said something like 10's of 1,000s ..... he was maybe my age. I tried to do that math in my head.

"Don't leave much time for golfing huh? Any of em live?"

No wonder he didn't like me much.


Q for you... did you mention (maybe I missed it) spine MRIs? Brains are easy to read. Spines, eh, not so much. Maybe get repeats and pass them around.

BTW, I like the Eagle. That's on my bucket list, get a pic of one of those arrogant snots if I have to twist an ankle chasing around the yard.