[Alteran37]

A bit of background:

-At age 7 I was involved in an accident where a large bolt hit me right above my left eye. I had to receive stitches to close the wound. In terms of damage, you could literally see the back of my eyeball.

-Years later when I was in 6th grade, it was finally noticed that the impact of that bolt had dislodged my retina leading to blurry vision in that eye. My eye doctor recommended surgery as soon as possible.

-I had 2 separate surgeries to reattach my retina, neither of which worked. So I am permanently blind in my left eye. It also has a cataract due to all the past trauma.

-My eye has slowly been veering of course over the years and is like a lazy eye.

-In my teens I started getting headaches in my blind eye, but my eye doctor said everything looked normal. Over the years these headaches have gotten worse. It usually starts as a burning or stabbing pain in the back of head and upper neck. The pain then radiates through my head (in the same spot every time) up to my eye.

The frequency of these headaches is at least everyday, if not more. My eyelid even gets a bit droopy now. The pain starts to radiate towards my temple and even sometimes down the left side of my face. I have expressed my concerns to my eye doctor. He always dismissed them and tells me to "keep popping pills". I've taken so much advil/Tylenol for the pain that I've started developing uplcers and had to cut back.

I have looked up occipital neuralgia and I know that they say it is usually caused by head trauma like car accidents and whiplash. I'm not sure this would qualify as head trauma or not but I've never found anything that matched so perfectly.

If you read through all of this thank you. I was just hoping that anyone here could give me some advice or recommendations maybe? I'm at a wall, where my eye doctor does nothing and I can't keep taking otc pain killers without getting ulcers. I don't know what to do....

Thank you for your time

[ger715]

Originally Posted by Alteran37

A bit of background:

-At age 7 I was involved in an accident where a large bolt hit me right above my left eye. I had to receive stitches to close the wound. In terms of damage, you could literally see the back of my eyeball.

-Years later when I was in 6th grade, it was finally noticed that the impact of that bolt had dislodged my retina leading to blurry vision in that eye. My eye doctor recommended surgery as soon as possible.

-I had 2 separate surgeries to reattach my retina, neither of which worked. So I am permanently blind in my left eye. It also has a cataract due to all the past trauma.

-My eye has slowly been veering of course over the years and is like a lazy eye.

-In my teens I started getting headaches in my blind eye, but my eye doctor said everything looked normal. Over the years these headaches have gotten worse. It usually starts as a burning or stabbing pain in the back of head and upper neck. The pain then radiates through my head (in the same spot every time) up to my eye.

The frequency of these headaches is at least everyday, if not more. My eyelid even gets a bit droopy now. The pain starts to radiate towards my temple and even sometimes down the left side of my face. I have expressed my concerns to my eye doctor. He always dismissed them and tells me to "keep popping pills". I've taken so much advil/Tylenol for the pain that I've started developing uplcers and had to cut back.

I have looked up occipital neuralgia and I know that they say it is usually caused by head trauma like car accidents and whiplash. I'm not sure this would qualify as head trauma or not but I've never found anything that matched so perfectly.

If you read through all of this thank you. I was just hoping that anyone here could give me some advice or recommendations maybe? I'm at a wall, where my eye doctor does nothing and I can't keep taking otc pain killers without getting ulcers. I don't know what to do....

Thank you for your time

Wish I could give you some good ideas; although I have had the lazy left eye headaches for years. I did get an occipital injection from a Pain Management doctor years ago. It really didn't do much, if anything, to help.

Eventually went to a neurologist who diagnosed the back of the neck/head and up the left side of the neck and the left eye as migraines. I did do some biofeedback training which helped somewhat to relax. The Imitrex for the headaches really has been the most helpful.

Just wondering if you are not having a rebound effect from meds. Really have to be careful not to overdo any of the meds; even otc. I had been unaware for years of these meds causing rebound headaches. I would take something to ease up the headache; which would help for a short time and then would come right back so I would take more. It was a vicious cycle, eventually causing the rebound headaches.

Since being on Imitrex, I am very careful to take only as directed. No more rebound headaches.

I would suggest (if you haven't already) is to see a Neurologist. If possible, one whose specialty is dealing with headaches.


Gerry