I went to a new neurologist who then sent me to a pain management specialist (been through this before) according to the MRI report there is nothing out of the ordinary.......
She did listen to me and came to the conclusion that it is the occipital nerve, between c3 and c5
She gave me a Cervical Medial Branch Block and an appointment to see her in 4 weeks..
Today, the day after, I have electric jolts of pain all over the top of my head,
in the same pattern I have had since the bicycle accident in 2008.
Does this mean that what is causing these jolts of pin point pain is not occipital neuralgia??
Honestly, I was so happy leaving her office yesterday after the procedure because i had no clue that she would really listen, and no idea that she would actually do something during my visit (this procedure)
I felt nothing except the left side of my entire head being numb all last night.
This morning however - back to the pain.
I will call tomorrow and tell her that the medial branch block did absolutely nothing. At that point I will be considered to be a "problem patient" who wants immediate results
I'm considering waiting fore a week to see how this pans out, then calling if i need to.
I have to say that this doctor is the first one who actually listened, seemed to have a handle on a diagnosis, and did something.
The next step if this doesn't work is to do a cervical radiofrequency ablation
and then if all else fails, a surgically inserted occipital nerve stimulator.
Any thoughts on any of this?
I'm optimistic, yet afraid to get any hopes up at this point.


I have no idea if this makes any sense at all, but the night of, and the day after this nerve block - the entire left side of my head was numb - and the pains were even more severe on the top of my head, as if this procedure riled the nerves on the top of my head up......

am I posting in the right place????

am I posting in the right place????

I just had an occipital nerve block after all these years and it seems to have WORKED!!!
pain is intermittent and weak (had the block yesterday.
Again, afraid to get my hiopes up but so far something has happened..

trigeminal/occipital - who knows at this point
 

I haven't posted in awhile so I don't remember how this works, but I will give a try at an update.....

I went to a pain management doctore in August who throughout October did a series of occipital nerve blocks to no avail....

then I went to a new Neurologist who actually listened and then told me that it wasn't occipital or trigeminal neuralgia, although it was a neuralgia.

Now this surprised me - he didn't think that the shooting needle like pains shooting across my scalp were caused by my bicycle accident - he thinks this neuralgia was caused by a traumatic experience, but not necessarily the accident....

this was somehow reassuring, he wants me to get a tegretrol level test taken and to see him in January.......

Who knows at this point......

Thanks for the update... I was hoping you were doing well.

But I do see you are still having difficulties. I am so sorry things are still not working well for you.

Thank you for coming back though...every poster's experience adds to the learning potential we have here for others. Many just read and never register, you know.

It really does seem like a constant run a round........I went to the newest doctor who prescribed baclofen 10mg to be used as an adjunct to the tegretol I've been using..
one half of a pill threw me for a loop and gave me a headache through the front of my head, my sinuses, the back of my neck and shoulders.

He also said that this is not a neuralgia but "Ice pick" headaches
here we go again - I'd love to have a consistent diagnosis, maybe that's not even possible.
I'm going back to sl0-mag and ncreasing the tegretol from 200mg 3x a day to 800 and possibly 900 mg a day.
I don't know about the Integrative Therapeutics Petadolex (butterbur) that another neurologist prescribed (how many I don't know....I used to take one or two....)
the pains have increased from electric like jolts to deeper and larger pains, although the constand jolts are still around...

I wonder if a visit to a special chiropractor might help you?

There is a type of therapy called Atlas that some people get when their neck is out of alignment, and pinching nerves.

Atlas Orthogonal technique. Some of our Concussion posters have had it, and I know some others who liked the results.

It is a gentle (non-cracking) type treatment, and it might help you.
http://www.atlasorthogonality.com/Pa...e/aboutAO.html
Look on Google for a chiro who knows how to do this. It might be worth one visit to explore the potential for it.

I went to my old migrane doctor, the one who was convinced that these were ice-pick headaches, and almost demanded that i take nortryptalyn(?)
she's not so sure these are ice pick headaces, or a neuralgia at this poing. she is sure that the pain is related to an overall "Migrane" profile.
she gave me an rx for a "cefaly device" this was developed in Europe and recently accepted my the ama.
You wear it for 20 mins every day..................I'm skeptical and it costs about 350.00.
Does anyone have an y thoughts, infor about this?
thank you - it seems that each doctor has a different take on what is wrong and it gets confusing and confusing after 8 years...

There are a number of posts throughout the forums about the Cefaly device. Some in TBI/PCS forum and also in Headache. If you use the forum search feature you'll find posts from others discussing the device.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/search.php