Vasovagal reaction to bloodwork prior to spinal tap

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Patraw
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Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:18 am
Location: Michigan, USA

Vasovagal reaction to bloodwork prior to spinal tap

Post by Patraw »

I went and got my lumbar puncture Tuesday afternoon, and it went pretty well. I only felt the initial needle prick and after that it was completely painless. The doctor used flouroscopy to guide the needle and I laid on my stomach during the entire thing, which took about half an hour. I made sure to drink a lot of water afterwards (and some tea, for the caffeine), so I didn't develop a bad headache or any nausea from it either. On the other hand, I had to do some bloodwork before said procedure, and that didn't go as well. My neurologist ordered a LOT of tests, so the blood technician had to fill quite a few vials with my blood and she blew the vein in my left arm halfway through the process. Almost immediately afterwards, I started sweating profusely and felt chilled/sick and asked her to give me a break for a while before she resumed on my other arm. As I was okay again after several minutes, I'm guessing that was just a Vasovagal reaction, but I've never had one of those before, and I'm not squeamish about blood or needles (the last time I had bloodwork done, in April, things went completely fine, and I watched my blood flowing into the vials the whole time with no discomfort), so, I'm really not sure why that would have happened on this occasion--I've never had that kind or reaction to having my blood drawn before and it was pretty frightening/disturbing to me. Since this was my first time ever getting a spinal tap, I was slightly nervous about that, but I wouldn't say I was particularly stressed out or anxious (and one would think I'd have had the Vasovagal reaction during that, not while I was having my blood drawn beforehand). Anybody else experience something similar? Maybe I should just not look at the blood being drawn in the future?
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