Interestingly, I saw the doctor prescribe coffee and fluids to stay hydrated for a patient with a post spinal tap headache. Caffeine actually increases cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) production, helping replenish the CSF lost during the spinal tap ☕️ [1].
Prion diseases are caused by infectious proteins. Something new I learned is that ophthalmologists and neurosurgeons are especially susceptible to prion disease because they directly interact with their patients’ neural tissues. Prion disease can be confirmed by testing for the 14-3-3 biomarker. Unfortunately, the test results were delayed by 15 days for this patient. Prion disease progresses very quickly, usually fully handicapping the patient 6 months after onset, so this delay in test results was not good.
Another case I saw was of a 13 year old boy whose friends were playing around and jumped on top of him, causing a spinal injury and subsequent quadriplegia. Fortunately, the patient had made a very good recovery and had been able to start walking again and regained bladder control. I was glad to see the patient recovering, but couldn’t have imagined how scary it must have been for him!
This clinic week was filled with interesting cases and I learned a lot. One of the evenings, I also paid another visit to the neuroanatomy lab at the University of Costa Rica where we checked out Dr. Bogantes’s brain research.
Neuroanatomy Lab with Aiman and Dr.Bogantes 🥼
To end off the week, the GMI girls and I had a movie night 🎬🍿. We watched a Taiwanese movie called Someday or One day 🇹🇼. It was a movie about time travel ⏰ and though difficult to understand at times, solving the puzzle was all a part of the fun of it!
Signing off,
Summan 😊
References
[1] M. X. Doe et al., “Caffeine as an Adenosine Receptor Antagonist: Effects on Post-Dural Puncture Headache (PDPH),” *National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)*, Dec. 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8743175/. [Accessed: Jul. 31, 2024].
[2] ChatGPT for citations