Hello, I am new to his site and am desperately trying to find someone to talk to who has experienced symptons such as mine. I haven't had a confiirmed diagnoses, but my gp believes I have suffered a viral infection (which hospitalised me 3 times) and as such has left me with a lot of pain symptoms in my head and neck. My head feels heavy constantly, neck feels achey and from the top of my neck, right up the back of my head and my whole scalp is constantly burning. My eyes have now started aching also. I have taken amitriptyline, Gabapentin and now Lyrica. Lyrica seems to help the most with the burning but the side effects are horrid. I feel like I don't have the energy to be involved in the easiest of tasks around the home and just want to be laid down most of the time. I am very down and would love to speak with someone who knows what I am going through. I really want someone to tell me that I am going to get better from this. I have been poorly now for 4 months. I am wondering whether I have occipital neuralgia? Is there anyone out there who can help me?

Welcome to NT

You do have a problem on your hands.

I haven't had any viral infections, but understand they're not easy to get over these days.

This is the link for general health conditions and rare disorders.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum2.html

There's lots of people lurking around. I sure hope somebody can share their experience and give you hope of recovery.

Here's the occipital neuralgia forum:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum105.html

You are doing the right thing by asking. You will have to do some leg work so you can help guide yourself through the medical jungle that's probably ahead of you. FInd a caring doctor who listens.

Maybe consult with a infectious disease doctor. The hospital should have provided you that consult.

I would start a diary of events and what's happening with your symptoms, doctor's appointments, tests, results, contacts, ins info. You may need to rely on the info.

Sometimes there's just no quick answer to a problem. I hope you get better soon.

Hi Beaumont

Yep I recently went through something very similar. The burning head pain or cciptital neuralgia. I also had neck pain and lots of spasms. Was there any kind of rash or ear pain? Did you have any feelings of paralysis in your arms? I did and my legs felt weak.

I am going on month 5 now and am just starting to feel better.

Mine was caused my a virus either HSV-1 or Varicella zoster.

Ask your doc if you can do a course of antivirals - valtrex is what I finally got the doc to give me. And I will now stay on it in a maintainence dose.

If he won't give you valtrex then try up to 2 grams of L-lysine. If you respond to this then perhaps it is a similar virus and it will show the doc you need antivital treatment.

For the occipital neuralgia I have started doing cranial sacral work to help calm down the cranial nerves. My Physical therapist does this along with LILT laser therapy to help heal the crainal nerves.

Keep us posted as to how you are doing.

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Great to see you have come to be with us. Just let us know if we can be of any help. We are all here to assist each other as possible.

Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around.

Darlene

Hi BR, and a warm welcome to NeuroTalk to you! You will discover that there are so many nice, caring and helpful people here. It is such a great place to hang out.

It sounds like you're going through a lot right now. I hope you will be able to get some relief eventually.

I'm so glad you found us!

welcome to neurotalk ... there are lots of friendly and supportive people here ... i see you have been given a couple of really good starting points so jump right in and start posting ... should you need help, don't hesitate to ask someone ... we are here to help

Hello and welcome to NeuroTalk! I do hope you're feeling better by now......it's frustrating when doctors cannot determine what's causing problems and pain. There's lots of caring and supportive people here (not to mention smart!) who are ready to listen and help when they can. Glad you found the site and posted with us.

My mother takes Lyrica at night because she says it makes her very tired during the day. Recently i saw a commercial on television saying that lyrica has made people depressed and even commit suicide. You should talk to your doctor about just wanting to lay around all day, it might be the meds you are on.

Jillybean

Hi and welcome to the site,
sorry to hear your having these problems,
around two years ago i was having the sore heads the stiffness in my neck swelling of fingers and a horrible burning in both my hands.
The docs put it down to damaged nerves, they put me on tramadol and gabapentin to try sort this out, like yourself i had 6 months in bed not able to interact in anything besides sleep. the burning pain in my hands was so bad i would hit them off the side of the bed, unable to brush my own hair it was so depressing for me.
eventually i stopped the medication, and found out later the gabapentin caused alot of my pain instead of curing it. And recently after a sub annie hemorage found out i was allergic to the tramadol.
i hope this gives you a bit of help and maybe your doc could change the meds your on. i wish you the best of luck to get to the bottom of this ill health.

please excuse my gramma i'm still in recovery from sub annie hem. 6mths ago.

love and light
roberta