From:

I have been suffering with left-sided headaches for twelve years. They are always in my temple and range from slight in pain to excruciating. Sometimes I have nausea and vomiting with the headache, as well as sensitivity to light, sound, and smell.

I have seen literally dozens of specialists for this, including rheumatologists and neurologists spanning four states. I am never completely free of pain.

Two weeks ago, I allowed a pain specialist, an anesthesiologist, to inject local anesthetic into the base of my head in an effort to block the occipital nerve. It worked ! ! ! At least for a day, it actually worked no headache at all. The next day, the headache returned with a vengeance.

I was hospitalized for seventeen months for treatment of this headache when it first began, with no relief except for regular injections of demerol and dilaudid. I even allowed a temporal arterial biopsy to be performed even though I was only 29 years old at the time, and temporal arteritis usually strikes the elderly. The biopsy was normal. The fact that the occipital nerve block worked leaves me to believe that my occipital nerve, and probably the trigeminal nerve, have demylenated. The headaches do mimic migraines, but it is not all vascular in nature. Most doctors will not do a nerve block of this nature. I had to beg for it. The doctor will not repeat the procedure, even though I have again begged for it. Why is is that I have to beg for the only treatment that has remotely worked???

I just thought I would share my experience with these awful headaches and relay my sympathy for those who suffer with them.

Over the past six years, I have spoken to literally hundreds of implant survivors about this and many of them do experience one sided headaches usually on the left side. Why, exactly, I am uncertain. Is it in fact, demylenization of the occipital and surrounding nerves? I can't get a straight answer from any doctor as they continue to fall back on "the evidence currently available is that silicone implants are perfectly safe." Those of us who are poisoned by them, know that they are not safe at all.

I have found that Neurontin will keep the headache from becoming so severe. It is a good medicine for the silicone patient if the side effects of myalgia can be tolerated. Out of the many, many different medications (beta blockers, calcium blockers, ergotamines, anti-depressants (?), and various migraine prophylactics, etc.) that I have tried, and the various 'medication cocktails' I have been given, I am at as much a loss to explain these maladies as I was twelve years ago. I do deeply empathize with those who also suffer with them, and pray we will find an answer to resolving them soon.

I was wondering.....

Yesterday, I moved my daughter's ten speed bicycle by lifting it up it usually doesn't seem very heavy. This time, I tore my pectoral muscle away from my ribs. OUCH! I can hardly breathe or move today.

The ER doctor said it was probably so easily torn because of my multiple breast surgeries. I had one augmentation in 1978, a revision augmentation in 1979, and explantation surgery in 1994.

I was wondering whether or not anyone else had experienced this type of problem. If so, how long did it take to heal? What did you do to help speed it along? I am having a very hard time handling the intense pain.

Oh! Listen to this: the ER doctor would only give me two Tylenol for the pain, even though he said he could clearly see that I was in a lot of pain, and told me that his experience with breast implant "victims" was that they had a tendency to be drug abusers. I left after I told him what I thought about this comment. I was just furious, but, hurting too much to really make too big of a scene.

Will the insults added to injury ever cease???

Lany