What is the post-procedure care protocol for a bone marrow biopsy?

What should patients expect after the bone marrow examination once they return home? Should they have any restrictions or diet changes? So we take what feels like a lot of bone marrow, but in the grand scheme of things we take a very small amount of the total bone marrow. So there should not be any change in a patient's counts or blood numbers after bone marrow biopsy is done. So you can eat your normal diet afterwards. I mean I don't think it's wrong to try to get a little more iron and dark leafy greens or red meat, those sorts of things. After we're done with the whole procedure, so I said we make that little nick in the skin, what we'll usually do is put a waterproof pressure dressing over top of that little nick in the skin and that can stay in place for a couple days. So at some centers it'll be like two to five days you'll have this waterproof dressing on. So you can shower, but there aren't really any strict activity restrictions. So patients can go for walks and do lightweight training and ride their bike and you know be with their family and get in the car and drive back to Idaho or Wyoming or wherever they may be from. The main restriction is that you can't soak in a tub or go in a pool or a hot tub after the procedure. That site needs a couple days to heal before you can do any of those activities. And that time a waterproof dressing is generally on there and you can shower with it in place. There are no restrictions, activity restrictions or water restrictions or otherwise. I think some other important things to know or expect afterwards, it's important to always monitor for signs of infection. In a bone marrow biopsy we have crossed the barrier of the skin. Anytime something does that from an IV to a major surgery you can get an infection. This bone marrow biopsy procedure is a sterile procedure, so the skin is sterilized, a sterile drape is used, our gloves are sterile and our instruments are sterile, so infection is very rare, but patients should watch for that. If they have any concern that an infection may be developing, then they should call their treatment team. Once the dressing comes off, there's really no care of the site required as long as it's healing appropriately because that nick in the skin is so small. And then the only other responsibility for the patient afterwards is just to monitor for uncomfortable symptoms or signs of infection or complications that they would want to tell us about. The other thing to expect is that it usually takes about a week to get all the results back for bone marrow biopsy.