dear amy my husband, jim, also developed ascites in the end stages of his illness. he was very uncomfortable with it and had a total of 3 paracentesis which helped considerably on a short term basis. the procedure itself was not that uncomfortable. the doctor did it under ultrasound and used a local anesthetic to insert the needle into the abdomen in order to drain off the extra fluid. it was a little uncomfortable as the anesthetic stings at first and he had to lie on his back. it took about a half hour or a little longer. i also bought him an abdominal binder to use in between procedures and this seemed to help some. he had very low platelets ( which you probably know have to do with clotting) but his bleeding time was not too bad. i hope this will be of help to you. sincerely jimandkathy