Spinal Tap...

[Jax]

So I just got out of the ER.
After a ton of tests, the doc said all my symptoms sound like I have hemmoraging in my brain. They said they wanted to do a spinal tap, but I declined and told them if what happened to me this morning happens again, Ill do it. Im really hoping this is just a freak thing. Going blind for a good minute is fucking scary as shit. Everytime I sat up or stood up, I blacked out. It was so bad that I had to crawl from my bathroom to my living room, and all I could see was black. No shapes, lights, nothing.
You dont appriciate your senses until you lose one.
Now if I have any blacking out at all, its straight back to the ER for that wonderful needle in my spine.

Hows your morning going;]

[HeadlessBill]

Ouch! Ow! Ouchie!

Take care of yourself, my dear Ms. Jax. I'm glad that you seem to be doing better.

[Amelia G]

Holy fuck! That sounds awful. I hope you are okay without having to do the spinal tap. Can they maybe just treat for what they think it is without having to do a test like that or is the treatment also awful?

*hugs*

[mmmcherry]

ugh ahhhh... no thanx. *hugs* i hope youre okay!!

[Jax]

Thanks guys. I have to rest for the remainder of the day and go to work tomorrow. I am taking it really easy considering I just found out that hemmoraging in the brain runs in the family and one of my family members has died from it.

Im still just hoping it was a freak thing, and its not the case at all.

Im not sure what the treatment is. They didnt go over it with me, but Im assuming that if they didnt talk about the treatment with me and wanted to do the tap first to make sure, that the treatment must suck.

[HempKnight]

Sorry to hear that, hospitals suck ass, boy do I know
that... and ERs are a fuckton worse. I've had a spinal,
in fact a couple times, as well as a bone marrow biopsy...
I'd take another spinal over the biopsy any day. And as
much as having a spinal done isn't an ideal event... it's
better to get it done and over with as a measure of prevention
and early diagnosis instead of waiting for a major event to
happen.

I wish you all the best and we (Muse & I) will be thinking
good thoughts for you. Take care.

~HK~

[Jax]

Thanks Hempknight and Muse.

I know I should just go in and get it done and over with. But after having two IVs and them poking into my artery (not my veins, you know the easy ones to get to) I was fearing another needle.

Is there a lot of pain after a spinal tap? My job requires me to lift dogs and constantly bend while they are on the table. Will a spinal hurt a bit afterwards?

[HempKnight]

I feel for you, I know exactly how you feel about
all the poking and prodding... I'm probably the worst
patient anyone could ever get... at least before the
Dilaudid kicks in... good stuff, ask for it.

Umm.. yeah, a spinal isn't a walk in the park by
no means and really shouldn't be too sore but
a bit tender for awhile after, especially with the
additional stress to the area of lifting and bending.

Although, some prescription IB 900s or Naproxen
500s should take care of it without knocking you
out... might want to ask for something a bit stronger
for later in the day and to sleep comfortably, shouldn't
be too bad after a couple days or so, depending on
how well you normally heal.

[motormenace]

Sorry to hear about everything. Did they do a CT or MRI scan to make sure it's nothing else?

Right now my girlfriend is suffering from problems with her fibromyalgia. Some of the doctors are saying that she is also suffering from degenerative disc disease and the percosets are more lick pez to her and the doctors don't know what the hells going on....

[VoltaireBlue]

I used to have blackouts when I was a kid. they went away when I was20. I hope yours is just a wierd phase like mine was I fell you on the poking and prodding thing... It sucks. I went through test after test for my blackouts, and even did an EEG, I hope yours just goes away........

[thomasroche]

So I just got out of the ER.
After a ton of tests, the doc said all my symptoms sound like I have hemmoraging in my brain. They said they wanted to do a spinal tap, but I declined and told them if what happened to me this morning happens again, Ill do it. Im really hoping this is just a freak thing. Going blind for a good minute is fucking scary as shit. Everytime I sat up or stood up, I blacked out. It was so bad that I had to crawl from my bathroom to my living room, and all I could see was black. No shapes, lights, nothing.
You dont appriciate your senses until you lose one.
Now if I have any blacking out at all, its straight back to the ER for that wonderful needle in my spine.
]

Wow, that really blows. My sympathies. I hope it turns out you are OK and don't have the problem again.

[Mindgames]

(hug, in a sitting position)

You don't mention if they CTed your head or not, but if they didn't I'm somewhat confused. I'd expect artefacts on a scan to be way more diagnostic than a tap if your physician is looking for a hereditary condition or a vascular pathology. You sound like you got to the ER quickly, so a bleed should have been visible on MRI - if they did a scan and it came back clear then with respect I'd have kicked your ass until you agreed to an ST - taps are predominantly for infection and infiltration (which may show on a scan as slight swelling, but often doesn't) so it's testing for stuff you'd prefer not to be allowing to linger untreated for a few days... a "plain old TIA" like you describe would make me think of something localized and vascular, and I'd want photos of your brain before poking you with anything...(but then people like me just want photos of everybody's brains....) The point a tap was mentioned would be the point your physician thought it was necessary - and while I really hope it was just a TIA you do have to realize that brains are a little more important than fingers - if they start complaining about something it's worth going the extra mile to find out what's wrong, so you don't don't wake up next week.


oh, and yeah.. this isn't the best place to be second-guessing a resident I've never met, but there's always PM.

mG

[Bondage Clown]

I love you!!!! keep yourself well.... keep us posted

[Amelia G]

(hug, in a sitting position)

You don't mention if they CTed your head or not, but if they didn't I'm somewhat confused. I'd expect artefacts on a scan to be way more diagnostic than a tap if your physician is looking for a hereditary condition or a vascular pathology. You sound like you got to the ER quickly, so a bleed should have been visible on MRI - if they did a scan and it came back clear then with respect I'd have kicked your ass until you agreed to an ST - taps are predominantly for infection and infiltration (which may show on a scan as slight swelling, but often doesn't) so it's testing for stuff you'd prefer not to be allowing to linger untreated for a few days... a "plain old TIA" like you describe would make me think of something localized and vascular, and I'd want photos of your brain before poking you with anything...(but then people like me just want photos of everybody's brains....) The point a tap was mentioned would be the point your physician thought it was necessary - and while I really hope it was just a TIA you do have to realize that brains are a little more important than fingers - if they start complaining about something it's worth going the extra mile to find out what's wrong, so you don't don't wake up next week.


oh, and yeah.. this isn't the best place to be second-guessing a resident I've never met, but there's always PM.

mG

And what might you be doing with those brain photos?

[Mindgames]

And what might you be doing with those brain photos?

I like brains.. so sue me.

AN MRI or FMR of your head is a beautiful thing once you get what you're looking at - 3lbs of pink jello if I threw one at you, but 3lbs of 100 billion cells each with over 5000 interconnections means there are more combinations possible than there are atoms making up planet Earth. At any one time, 10% of these connections are firing and that gives you more processing power than the latest supercomputers. To do that, it uses a quarter of your oxygen and enough energy to run a lightbulb. Mammals evolved as a life support system for a larger brain, not the other way round.

The ancient Egyptians thought it was just a fat reserve and threw it away before mummification. The Greeks thought it was a radiator to control body heat. It does control body heat, but it also controls everything else your body does and makes you 'you'. Damage to the brain can have a terrible effect on the patient, but the brain is actually numb, so you can prod it and poke it when the patient's awake, and make them sneeze or think of strawberries. We know which bits handle which things, but we don't know how it happens or why it works so well given it starts off as a randomly-wired 3lb blob of pink jello.

But what's most fascinating is that with all that incredible detail and complexity crammed inside all our heads, we still put Bush in the White House.

[VoltaireBlue]

hey, how are you doing? please let us know....

[Jax]

Im doing alright. Still a bit off, but Im going back in to get an MRI and the spinal tap. Still got some killer headaches, but I think thats more stress than anything. Thanks for asking;]

[HeadlessBill]

Well, I'm hoping that they can make you feel all better. And as Voltaire requested, please keep us informed.

[Morning Glory]

that suuucks.



Just think:

[Bondage Clown]

11

[Jax]

Haha, nice pic.

Heres an update:

So I just got back from the ER and doing my spinal tap. I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!
But the good news is that all the tests came back negative...SO, there is no bleeding in my brain or any aneurisms.
The bad part is my blood pressure is still 87/35, which is nasty low. So something is still going on and now for the bad news.
They think it has something to do with my heart. So I have to go to a cardiologist to make sure my heart is pumping properly.
If my heart is good, Im just fucked.

[Bondage Clown]

We are pulling for ya!!!

[Exquisite]

Hope you feel better soon Jax!

[Black Spiral Dancer]

Thinking good thoughts for you!

[mmmcherry]

<3

[motormenace]

Hope that you get better....

[Mindgames]

Yeah, spinal taps aren't particularly popular a second time, but I kinda said that already. It was important to do though - shame to lose you for want of a bit of discomfort, and a negative test is just as valuable as a positive one.

Most everybody is scared of tests, partly because they may be uncomfortable but mostly because a test may tell them something they'd prefer not to know. Head in the sand mentality. People (he says talking in general but not to Jax) really need to get over their trepidations and get things checked out early, so strange men in white coats can FIX YOU. Cars get serviced, computers get antivirus software and pets get checkups, but their owners just plod on ignoring that twinge or rash until an arm falls off. Silly.

[mmmcherry]

that is exactly right mindgames... my dad was really sick a few years ago because of this skin condition on his leg... fuck if i can remember what its called now, but hes had it for years and years, and its always itchy, and it got infected, and he had a fever so high he was hallucinating... he would sit in his chair and mumble something that wasnt even words, and wed go "what?" and it would scare him, hed jump and go "WHAT?what..." "dad you were talking" "no i wasnt... *mumble mumble*" mmmhm. so finally my mom MADE his ass go to the dr, but they still took like 3 months to figure out what the hell was wrong with him... he got every test you can think of, probed everywhere you can think of... not fun.
and now he still refuses to go to the dr... lame.
women will go to the dr though... and women will MAKE their men (or man friends... man friends? that sounds bad hehe) go to the dr...

[VoltaireBlue]

thats really low blood presure. when i had black outs, i wasn't eating right. it took someone to tell me for me to know, but if you ever want t6o talk about vitamins and shit, let me know. I'd be more than happy to hook ypou up with some info on nutrition, and healling w/ herbs... pm me if you want.... herbs take longer than antibiotics, but in the long run they're better for your bod...........

[VoltaireBlue]

sorry that I amkinda buzzed while posting , lady............

[Bondage Clown]

Oh,, I will trade you Bp for three days... mine averages 150/112.. I am on meds.. but i go off of them and trade you if you need it hun.