Pseudotumor Cerebri Lumbar Puncture?

cmacfiredog

Yes, I just had my Lumbar Puncture (LP) recently in order to measure the opening pressure. It should be around 21 or so, mine was 30 - too high. The LP was first attempted ny my Neurologist in her office and she struck out four times - probably because I am overweight -- we moved down to x-ray and the LP was done with the use of a Fluero scope (sp?) and so, even after being stuck six times, there was no bruise - I took the next day to rest. I felt so good right when they removed all that fuid - I will do it again as often as necessary, until I need a shunt. My followup is the 23rd of Feb.
My medicine is to primarily counter the optic nerve pressure, but the rest of the pressure is still causing headaches, dizziness, nausea, ear ringing and "swooshing" sounds when I move my eyes. I afraid the meds are not hitting the root cause.

ladybug27205

My neurogolist said my MRI showed signs of atrophy, increased fluid and scheduled me for an LP next week....do you mind telling me how it was? I really dread it

Amandar7

Ladybug,

The LP itself was not terrible. The worst part was the numbing agent my doctor used, it caused some tingling in my nerves by my tailbone that was painful. After I was numb, I laid down on my side, and held on to the pillow. I was pretty numb, so I didn't feel much. My opening pressure was actually low, so the test was negative for pseudotumor. My doctor says normal is around 100, and my opening pressure was only 80. After he was done, I laid there for a while, then they sat me up, I got dressed, and they sent me home.

Now, I went straight to bed where I laid flat all day, drank oodles of water and coffee, but I still developed the low-pressure headache associated with LPs. My doctor thinks it was probably inevitable because I started off with lower than normal pressure, but it was the WORST! After 2 days of not being able to sit or stand upright due to the pain in my head being so bad, I went back to the hospital to have a blood patch, which was quite painful. Hopefully, you won't have to deal with that. The LP itself wasn't painful, and as long as you follow directions and don't have really low pressure like I did, you should be fine.

Good Luck!

jobacon

just ask to be sedated. I had the LP and also had to go back for a blood patch (should have kept resting the next day but didn't) so I had one sedated one not. It's scarier w/o sedation but doesn't hurt...just the normal sticks from I.V.'s etc...honestly you're going to worry about it way more than it really is. I'm scared of needles and it wasn't all that bad.