LP's are pretty awesome. The ones I get are therapeutic as they are used to drain CSF from my poor little spine. Walking out of an LP is the best I will feel for weeks. My head will feel light. My neck will not hurt. My vision will be crystal clear. It will be glorious.
It will last a day.
So how do they perform an LP? First they inject you with a local. Locals are silly things. They clump up in your skin so sometimes they try and stick the needle in and it still hurts. So then they pull the needle out and moosh it around a little bit.
Look over there! -----> also... creditThis is where they stick the needle. All of your important bits (the nerves that control things like your legs) are all higher up so there is really no risk of them severing them and you peeing your pants. They do occasionally touch a nerve end on accident because everything is floating around down there but you are supposed to tell them that you are numb and then they move the needle and all is grand again.
So, they stick the needle in and the fluid drips out which provides temporary relief. They also test it to make sure you are healthy and measure the pressure so you can brag to all of your friends with IH. Oh wait, those people don't exist. So I guess you can tell yourself while looking in the mirror.
Just a warning, volume to 11 jokes does not make the person doing the tap laugh.
Also, there was a lot online about how you are NEVER supposed to do an LP on someone with high ICP. While I have been told that my hospital neuro was a bit of a cowboy, IH sufferers are the exception to that rule as they are doing them to lower ICP. Hospital neuro knew what was wrong before he stuck me with his needle of doom.
On a completely unrelated side note, an Activia commercial was just on. How do people manage to eat 3 of those a day?
Happy Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment