Reply To: Spinal Tap

hi dawn, i’ve had over 7 in the last few years. they shouldn’t hurt-as in pain, just might feel some pressure when the needle goes in and then when the tap goes in. i’ve had some with numb meds first and some without. the numbed ones were alot easier and they were done using the fluroscope-xray type imaging, to assist the dr in correct placement of needle and tap. the whole procedure shouldn’t take more then 30 mins from start to finish. if your daughter doesn’t lay flat immediately she will get a spinal headache–very, very painful. and if she does lay flat for an hour and has a spinal headache afterwards it could be a sign that she has a need for a blood patch-but that would be determined by her dr. laying flat for min of 1 hour allows the spinal fluid to patch up the hole from the tap. it is not one of those sometimes things-it is a must do type of thing. no upright sitting or standing until after 1 hour of laying flat-no pillow or incline whatsoever. the best thing for me was to lay with my legs elevated higher then my heart-on a hospital bed raise the footend a smidge. no lights on and quiet. make sure she drinks enough the day before the lp, it will help her also. filtered water and plenty of it. depending on who does the lp, i found i had a quicker, less side effects and was more comfortable laying flat for the procedure.
the lp shows the protein count, any blood, white cells, red cells, color change, clarity and other tests from the spinal fluid. it can tell a dr who knows how to interpret the results correctly, alot of what might or might not be going on with the body. a low protein count like under 20 is good, where the higher could mean there are problems. for cidp the count is anything 45 or greater, although that doesn’t mean that one might not have cidp if the number is lower-false negatives. there are 10% of people who have gbs or cidp and have less then 45 count.
in case the dr didn’t tell you what is involved in a lp-the needle-you can think of it as the outside part of a pen only alot smaller-is inserted into the space between the L-1 and L-2 or the L-2 and L-3, it goes near the fluid but not into the sack, then the tap is inserted through the needle-like the ink part going into the pen holder-and it is pushed into the spinal canal and the fluid comes out the top end of it, like a really small spiket into a clear glass vial. once there is enough fluid in the vial the tap comes out and the needle comes out and its done. it usually takes 24 hours for the results to be available and sometimes longer. Hope that gives you some more info that helps.