A couple of years later.....

Although I was sure my ON had gone, as I didn't think I felt any pain anymore! During the summer holidays two years later, I felt the awful dizzy feeling when getting on and off the sun beds!! Uh oh!!
It wasn't long before the pain returned. I put up with it for 6 weeks and by then thought I'd better go to the doctors. I am sure I was in denial that it was ON again! I just hoped it was just a headache!! Haha. Yeah right!!!

Of course, after discussion with the GP I knew what it was really. Annoyingly though, the doctor felt I needed to revisit some of the drugs I'd already tried. So I was put back into amitriptyline :( Oh...what a surprise, it didn't help at all!

Then amongst all this awful luck of mine...a little spark of hope appeared. I realised that I could actually be covered by my partner's private medical insurance! So I quickly mentioned this and you should have seen the sigh of relief from the GP! I know she had said they do not know much about the condition...but she was utterly relieved she no longer had to try and help me.

As soon as possible I managed to see a wonderful neurosurgeon, who knew all about ON! He has a lot of patients in the same position as me, with ongoing pain affecting their lives. It was great to actually be able to talk about it and get intelligent answers back.
It wasn't long, after MRIs and x-rays, that I was booked in for my first surgical procedure....a greater occipital nerve block.
I presumed it was a small procedure, perhaps the Internet is to blame, but it took me a few weeks to recover from the surgical pain. BUT by the time that had diminished, my pain had returned.
As a nerve block is used for diagnosis, at least it was proof I had ON...but sadly was not the answer that worked well enough for me!

Since then I have undergone five other procedures!!!! None of which have lowered my pain for a suitable amount of time. So I have been in and out of work for two years!

The procedures I have had since then are;
* peripheral neurostimulator therapy
* another nerve block
* pulsed radio frequency ablation (using high frequencies rather than heat)
* pulsed radio frequency ablation and nerve block
* pulsed radio frequency ablation to right greater occipital nerve and C2 and C3 facet joints

I will add pages about these procedures when I can!