traumatic spinal tap

[mshawg]

Our son-in-law had a seizure last Wednesday and fell from a standing position to the ground resulting in a closed head injury.  He has never had a seizure before and told his boss he felt "funny" like he'd been drinking.  The ER doctor did a spinal tap, on Thursday, that he said was one of the easiest he'd ever done but all 4 vials were blood red.  They did another spinal tap on Monday with an anesthesiologist doing the procedure.  The first vial from the first tap had a red blood count of 93,000.  The first vial from the second tap had a red count of 16,500 and the last vial from the second tap had a count of 6,500.   I was wondering if a traumatic tap would result in blood staying in the spinal fluid that long.  The doctor at the hospital wasn't much help.  Would appreciate any help you could give me.  Thank you.

[crystalhanzelka]

Well thank God for no bleeds in the noggin.  There is a lot of information on the web about "traumatic spinal taps".  I did not know it would stay in the fluid that long either.  Unless it has been "traumatic" both times???

[mshawg]

They did 2 CT scans, an MRI and also a cerebral angiogram and told us they were all
normal.  We were told that the most logical explanation was a bad tap.  Just didn't know
if the blood would stay in the fluid that long.  Thanks for your input though.

[crystalhanzelka]

I am not a doctor...but everything I have read about spinal taps (and have had a few myself) states that if it is bloody it means there is a hemorrage in the brain area.....??  Did they do a CT scan to rule this out?