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Surgery Anyone?



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10/18/2007 19:09
memmerrill
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At my last appt, the doc said my headache is intractable, meaning that meds are not working. He said that the next step is surgery. Has anyone gone through surgery for their headache? What was it like?
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10/18/2007 23:07
MaryR
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That is rather scary. What kind of surgery was he recommending? Is it implanting an occipital nerve stimulator thing? If not then I have no idea what sort of surgery it could be. I would be really nervous if my doctor told me that. I hate to hear that you aren't responding to any meds. I guess you have tried everything or it wouldn't have come to this. I hope someone can give you some insight as to what to expect.
Mary
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10/19/2007 17:40
memmerrill
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Yes, I've tried a long list of drugs in various categories: anti-seizure, anti-depressant, etc. We didn't talk in depth about the types of surgery yet. First my mouth has to stop hurting. When I took Elavil, it gave me dry mouth which led to the decay of 14 of my teeth. They've all been worked on in the past 4 months and I have a significant amount of pain in my mouth which thankfully responds to Ibuprofen! So after that happens, he said the first thing to do would be a spinal tap to rule out high CSF pressure. Not exciting! Of course I always think of the dreaded spinal headache. Like I don't have enough of a headache as it is, ya know?

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10/19/2007 21:44
MaryR
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yeah, that sounds bad but I would want them to rule it out before they started surgery. A lady I used to work with has that. She actually still works there and I had to quit because of my headache. She has to get periodic spinal taps (not fun) but other than that she has a fairly normal life. This is random but have you had anything from the atypical antipsychotic class? Seroquel helps me though not everybody, but it doesn't fit into a normal class for headaches. I would hate for anything to get overlooked if it might help you.

Sorry to hear about your teeth. That is awful. That must have been some really bad dry mouth. I can't imagine how much of a pain that has been to get that much dental work done that fast. Expensive too no doubt. I hope the spinal tap is not as bad as you are imagining. The lady I worked with didn't really like them, but she just took them as a matter of fact and didn't seem to view them as a big deal either. That might be because she was used to them at that point since she had to get several a year, or they might not be as bad as people say. I haven't had to have one yet myself so I don't know. Keep me posted on how things go.

Mary
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