Hello Everyone, I have belonged to this forum and the Occipital neuralgia forum for a few years. I posted mainly over on the ON forum but I would like to share with everyone that I have just had the decompression surgery here in California with great success. It has been 1 1/2 weeks since surgery and I am not feeling my constant headache/migraine light and sound sensitivity with massive dizziness already. I have a little soreness around the wound and some funny nerve tingles and bits of pain and that is it. The surgery is only slightly different than Dr. Blake and Perry's in that it was done microsurgically with just a small incison which makes recovery much faster. The doctor who did it has been in the news lately as he is also the surgeon who helped Jennifer Blake (baby) from Dirty dancing to get healthy for DWTS Dancing with the Stars. He was on Good Morning America last Monday and also in People magazine. He has been neuro/ortho surgeon for the last Olympic Team etc If anyone wants a good neurosurgeon just google Dr. Robert Bray Jr. from Marina Del Rey near Los Angeles. His curriculum Vitae was quite amazing. I went to my spine surgeon who is at the same D.I.S.C center mid Sept for my 6 month post op and my dear surgeon saw how much I was suffering with ON and left the room and came back with Dr. Bray who had dx'd me in 2 minutes and I was booking surgery for the very next week. I had wanted to go to TX for my surgery for the past year or so but did not have the funds so this was great. During the surgery ( he uses a microscopic doppler ultrasound to check for nerve problems)it was found that I had a genetic abnormality where an artery went through the middle of my greater occipital nerve. I had lived with that fine for 50 years and then after a treadmill accident the artery decided to "go rogue" it grew and twisted my greater Occipital nerve and two of its branches into a big lump of mass. I had been on a cocktail of neurontin norco zanaflex etc and tried all the therapies over the past few years and my life consisted of laying in bed in a dark room in a drug filled fog. It has been 1 1/2 weeks and I am feeling wonderful. I really want to thank everyone on this forum and the ON forum because without you guys I would probably not be here today sharing this fantastic news. Hugs, Chloe Post edited by: cmiller, at: 10/08/2010 10:06 AM I am not a medical professional. I sufferered Occipital Neuralgia and had right and left occipital nerve release surgery in 2010.
Before surgery I would throw up almost daily from the severe dizziness and had severe light and sound sensitivity. I stayed in bed, curled up in the fetal position wishing I had the courage to kill myself. If I didn't take a cocktail of antiseizure, opiates and muscle relaxers I suffered hundreds of electric shock type pains per day in my head and had a constant migraine type pain 24/7 from july 2008. I lay grieving for my life that once was the friends who once were and the void in my future.
Right surgery 100% relief; left surgery, scarring grabbed a crown nerve and I had surgery again to relieve that june 2011. Surgery really helped but was left with daily migraines triggered by certain sound pitches making living in this noisy world very difficult
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Keep us updated on how you are going over the coming weeks/months.
