Jamie, I get freezing shots both in my head and neck. The head ones I can manage, but I had the neck ones twice and told my pain specialist not to do them anymore. They are unbearably painful and *so* not worth it for me. It hurt so much going through the muscle tissue, I thought I was going to be sick and the room was spinning. I was lying down, but I felt very faint.

After the freezing wore off, it hurt worse than the original pain so I decided no more of that! I also don't get the steroid part of the injection anymore. I get freezing almost every week and I was getting the metallic taste in my mouth really bad from the steroids. The nature of my ON is not inflammation anyway-it's my MS so the steroid does nothing for me anyway.

Glad the shots are helping you. It's too bad you have to wait so long to get in. I have a standing order that if I need in on an emergent basis, the receptionist who books for my pain doc is to fit me in no matter what. I am very lucky.

The whole stim thing for me has been on again/off again, but there is new hope-there is a neurosurgeon here who has done 2 implants so far on ON patients and so my pain specialist is going to write him a letter and see if he will take me on so I might get a trial with the stim. Has your doc said whether a stim might be an option for you? I guess it depends on how bad each case is. Mine is pretty severe.

Hang in there. It's not easy, I know.