2023-2024 Form

Instructions and help about Spinal Tap Lumbar Puncture What To Expect At Home

hi I'm dr. Ronnie Kapadia and I just want to tell you what to expect for your upcoming lumbar puncture appointment as you may know the brain is connected to a spinal cord and these structures are surrounded by a sac you've probably heard about this sac for it's called the meninges it's made up of several layers you may have heard of children and adults getting meningitis that's inflammation and infection of the SAC that lines the spinal cord and brain and often we do this procedure to look for infection in meningitis within the sac it's a bit of a closed system and there's fluid within it called the cerebral spinal fluid we abbreviate that CSF that's what we're going to measure the pressure within today and also we're going to take a sample of that fluid this spinal fluid the CSF is made by the brain and it's absorbed into the venous structures of the brain and back into the body and so some patients can have high pressure problems from too much production of spinal fluid or perhaps an