This young dancer suffered from severe occipital neuralgia having symptoms of severe head and neck pain in the base of the neck, back of the head radiating forward. She has suffered a whiplash-type injury that caused severe pain that never resolved even with aggressive physical therapy, medication management, and therapeutic injections of the occipital nerves and posterior neck. However, the only time she had relief was when the local anesthetic used in the nerve blocks was functioning. This provided support for the diagnosis of post-traumatic occipital neuralgia. Her pain had been severe enough that she had to stop dancing (her passion), and she was struggling in school due to the pain. Ultimately after failure to improve, she underwent a decompression of the bilateral greater occipital nerves to take the pressure off these nerves, much like carpal tunnel surgery on the hand would take pressure off the median nerve at the wrist. Also during this operation, we do remove some smaller nerves (the lesser and the third occipital nerves). She is now two years from this operation and has been dancing again for over a year. She recently won first place in a major dance competition in her age group, and we celebrate with her and her parents! She reports that she has 100% relief of her pain symptoms and has returned to her former, bubbly, smiley, excited self, and I got a pair of ballet shoes!!! A little small for me, but they will look great on the wall! THANKS!
Good luck Mom and Dad for her "teenage" years ;)
Sofia