[Guest]

My fiancee has recently fallen ill. She is a 25 year old female in good physical condition. She recently had a spinal tap. This resulted in a severe headache from a cerebral spinal fluid leak. The leak occurred for approx. 11 days. Towards the end of this 11 day period she developed weakness, stammering speech and numbness/tingling on the left side of her body. The leak was corrected with a blood patch and the headache diminished greatly almost immediately. Her speech has improved (still stammering) and she is now capable of barely walking with a walker (please note, she was running 5k's before this). The doctors have run MRIs MRAs, etc. and supposedly found no other reasons for the continued stammering and weakness (3 days now). 3 questions:

Can there be prolonged deficits from the duration of a CSF leak?

Could the prolonged leak and/or spinal tap result in other bacterial infections of the central nervous system resulting in deficits as described above?

Any suggestions to take to her neurologist?

[Guest]

I am sorry that she is so ill. Whatever the initial illness resulting in the spinal tap to be done may possibly be playing a role. Infectious processes can involve the brain and/or spinal cord and result in weakness and other problems. MRI studies of the spinal region (to rule out hematoma, abscess) of the spinal cord region should be done if apporpriate to the neurological findings. The low pressure and leak itself would be very unlikely to reult in severe neurological problems as you describe. Good luck.
[quote] My fiancee has recently fallen ill. She is a 25 year old female in good physical condition... [/quote]