Hi! I had my lumbar puncture/spinal tap yesterday. Sorry I didn’t post, but I was bedfast for the entire day, per the hospital’s instructions. It went ok, actually much better than the one I had done in 2011. They’ve improved the procedure, made it much faster, less painful. In fact, even though two surgery nurses had told me the day before that I’d be having anesthesia, to my shock, I received none and no pain medications either! I thought, what the hell? It’s a damn spinal tap!!! However, once they went in, after the initial needle went into my spine, which did hurt quite a bit, things settled down and I could hardly tell anything was happening, which was quite different from last time, so I guess I didn’t need it. It took about a third of the time as the previous one, which was great. After it was done, I was supposed to lie flat in bed at the hospital for 2-4 hours, but they let me go before 2 hours had gone by. But I had to go straight home and lie down flat on my back all day and night, except for bathroom and eating breaks. Since I didn’t get to eat much for such a long period (I had had to fast from midnight and my procedure wasn’t until 10, even though I had to be there at 7:30 AM), I just weighed myself and found I lost three more pounds and I’m at my lightest weight since my major surgery weight of December 2011 and just 23 pounds from my ultimate goal. That’s cool. (That’s now a little over 80 pounds lost overall!) However, when it’s all said and done, it was a disappointment, because we did not get the result we were hoping for. We were looking for a specific spinal fluid pressure and this time it was even lower than last time and we were sure it would be higher — and it would have had to be higher to be what we expected it to be to explain all this damn pain. So we may be back at square one. Except … there’s one last hope. If you have this disorder, the spinal tap is supposed to relieve your pain. If you have no head pain for awhile, that’s a good sign. So, my head pain basically disappeared yesterday and so far this morning, although it’s only 3:00 AM and a lot can change, no headache. So, I’m holding out hope that even though the spinal fluid pressure didn’t indicate it, it still exists and the pain will have dissipated and that will explain everything. Oh God, please…. I meet with my neurologist on Wednesday, the day after I meet with my orthopedist and my pain management specialist, all of whom will be interested in the results. Here’s hoping. Thanks for thinking of me, those of you who did. Cheers!