giraffe75

Well, I made it through my LP and from what I have read from most of you, you were right. The LP itself wasn't good but not nearly as bad as anticipated. NOW - as for the recovery - thats a whole different story. My neuro did my tap and she did a great job adn was very pleased with it. However less than 24 hrs later I was back in the ER to have a blood patch done. For those who don't know, its just like an LP except they take your blood and inject it into the site to help with clotting. I had extreme muscle tightness in my upper extremities to the point it would draw my arms into my chest and I couldn't move or control them. The Blood patch has an 80% success rate from what I'm told and for a day and a half I only had a mild headache - UNTIL I tried to go back to work, and you guessed it, it started all over again. I was doing exactly as instructed by laying flat for days and drinking caffine. Apparently that wasn't enough. My Neuro didn't want to do a blood patch again that close to the other one so it was up to the caffine. I had explained that wasn't working and I had drank a 2-liter bottle of coke in one day by myself. His comment - Not strong enough or enough. I was told to drink at least 8 oz. of Mt. Dew every hour. As gross as I thought it was - I did it and slow and I mean slowly its helping. The prelimiary test have come back and things look good but i have to wait for another week for my dx.