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Old 09-30-2011, 04:18 PM #1
Chiarijessica Chiarijessica is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2011
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10 yr Member
Chiarijessica Chiarijessica is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 1
10 yr Member
Default Occipital Nerve Blocks with Chiari and fusion

Has anyone here had occipital nerve blocks done after a decompression and/or fusion surgery.

A little bit of background on me. I am 29 years old, and i was diagnosed in July of 2002. I had my first decompression august of 2002, then that decompression was not large enough and i had a redo in april of 2003. This one gave me relief for 2 months, then i decided my oklahoma dr's werent cutting it. I then started going to new york for treatment. Ironically enough now my original surgeon has surrendered his medical license. I had my decompression redone in january of 2004, i had developed cerebellar slumping and cervical instability so they also fused me from my skull to C4. I did well for about 6 months. I had a pacemaker put in july of 2004 due to my heartrate constantly dropping into the 20's. Then they placed a shunt in november of 2004. I finally had a ct myelogram that showed there were still major problems. I was diagnosed with the classical type of ehlers danlos syndrome and i returned to new york for surgery in november of 2005. I spent 4 months in the hospital, they redid my initial fusion down to c5, then the complications began slow healing, mrsa, headaches, and right sided paralysis. A plastic surgeon was helping with the healing issues, i had to wear a woundvac for 8 weeks, when he went to take it off he took me in the or and the way he positioned me while i was under sedation to close my incision caused me problems, i woke up from surgery with paralysis, and to make a long story short my fusion was ruined, so in January of 2006 they had to take everthing out, my c5 vertebrate crumbled and they fused me down to C6.

I have done remarkably well since then. The only chiari related care i have is i see a pain mgmt dr every 3 months. I do take an extended release morphine daily but it has been all i have needed to be able to continue to work and to carry on a normal life. I have been having neck pain the last 6 months or so but nothing so horrible to make me complain about it. Eleven days ago i got one of the horrible headaches i havent had in 5 years. I went to the ER after 3 days. They did a ct scan which showed the shunt is working fine, that was the first concern. Then they gave me ativan, zofran, and phentanyl via iv, then wrote me a prescription for percocet, zanaflex, and compazine and sent me on my way. I took two percocet and havent touched it since because it did no good and the compazine made my headaches ten times as bad so i only took one of those. Monday morning i called my pain mgmt drs office and they got me in yesterday morning.

My pain mgmt dr did xrays, and got my reports from the er visit. He then had me look at my xrays and told me there is a lot of reversal in the spine right below the fusion, i asked him what that meant and he said the bones are curving the wrong way. He didnt have an old xray to compare it to but i have some at home somewhere i just have to find them, then i am going to take those to him. Needless to say i am now scheduled for a ct scan of the neck. He feels my headaches could be due to the occipital nerves and wants to do nerve blocks on them. He also prescribed prednisone and said if that takes it away cancel the nerve blocks, so far the prednisone has made me feel horrible. I have the nerve blocks scheduled for a week from this monday. I am extremely nervous about them and was curious if anyone else has had them done and if they have been helpful at all. I trust this dr 100%, I am still very nervous about it. He was going to do them in the office then he decided he would rather do it under fluoroscopy which makes me feel a little bit better.

Right now my plan is to see if the nerve blocks help, get the results from the ct i am having next month, and then contacting my dr's in new york. My neurologist up and moved to california without even notifying his patients, and like i said the nsg i saw in oklahoma no longer has his license so right now all i have for immediate relief is my pain mgmt dr, I am just very lucky he is open minded and somewhat knowledgeable regarding chiari.

Thanks

Jessica
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