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Topic: sphenopalative ganglion block (Read 567 times) |
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ctygrl1965
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sphenopalative ganglion block
« on: Dec 17th, 2007, 3:14pm » |
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My husband has suffered with clusters for 20 years. He's tried everything under the sun for treatment. Last year he tried Topomax and it was a big success. This year it doesn't seem to be working. He went to the pain clinic the other day and (after two unsuccessful medication tries) they want to try a sphenopalative ganglion block. Has anyone tried this before? Was it successful?
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vietvet2tours
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #1 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:00pm » |
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on Dec 17th, 2007, 3:14pm, ctygrl1965 wrote:| My husband has suffered with clusters for 20 years. He's tried everything under the sun for treatment. Last year he tried Topomax and it was a big success. This year it doesn't seem to be working. He went to the pain clinic the other day and (after two unsuccessful medication tries) they want to try a sphenopalative ganglion block. Has anyone tried this before? Was it successful? |
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List everything under the sun please.
Potter
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ctygrl1965
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #2 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:06pm » |
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He's tried prednasone, verapamil, neurontin, imitrex, topamax, vancenace and the only working,ever popular oxygen. The pain doctor put him on lyrica and trileptal but they only made things worse.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:09pm by ctygrl1965 » |
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Ray
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #3 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:16pm » |
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Dear Ctygrl1965:
The sphenopalatine ganglion is a "nerve bundle" that has a branch where the back of the nose meets the soft palate. I have not had a "blockade" there, but I have had topical anesthetics there.
This was somewhat successful for me, maybe 1 out of 4 headaches were aborted that way. The topical anesthetic will temporarily put the nerves to "sleep". This may cause the trigeminal ganglion to also go to "sleep" causing an end to the pain.
This is temporary, and if successful, it will not last long.
I hope that this information is helpful,
Ray
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Linda_Howell
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #4 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:19pm » |
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What you have mentioned is HARDLY everything.
Go here, and scroll down to treatments.
http://www.clusterheadaches.com/about.html
Linda
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vietvet2tours
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #5 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 4:51pm » |
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I experimented with a caine for quite a while It didn't help nor did it hurt.Course nuthin hurt.
Potter
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Guiseppi
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #6 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 5:02pm » |
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I haven't seen many postings of success for the surgical routes. The success stories were temporary....which at this point probably sounds like heaven to him. I'm lucky in that lithium has been a really effective prevent with oxygen and imitrex beating down the demon.
Your frustration comes through loud and clear, sounds like he's really getting creamed.
Has he tried lithium? It's had a pretty good success rate on the board. For dosage comparisons, I'm male, 47, weigh about 190 and am episodic. When on cycle I take 1200 mg of lithium carbonate a day, 300 mg pills 4 X a day, evenly spread over the day. Takes about 2 weeks to kick in but then it's about 90% effective in blocking.
Thanks for doing the research for him, I really can't advise you on the surgical route as I have no experience with it. Good luck what ever route he chooses and thanks again for being his supporter.
Guiseppi
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Crappy
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #7 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 8:34pm » |
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First, I don't think a ganglion block is a surgery, unless I'm totally misunderstanding. That's just an injection, right? I have had a nerve block injection to ganglion in the back of the neck. It's a different ganglion, but it's where much of my pain centers, and is generally swollen and tender on palpation, so they tried a nerve block injection. They first did a caine injection (anesthetic), and then the nerve block injection.
The caine anesthetic numbed the area for a couple of hours. I wasn't in the middle of an attack, so I can't say that it would or would not have helped. The nerve block, if successful, was supposed to lead to weeks or months of no pain, but in my case it led to 3 or 4 days of increased pain. I described it as the Tourettes Syndrome injection, because I don't normally swear but for 3 days I couldn't say "F--ing Mayo" and "F--ing Dr. D----" enough times.
Anyway, that was my experience, but if my best friend had CH, I would tell them to give it a shot, because I don't think the downside (a few days of worse pain) can even be compared to the possible upside (weeks of no pain).
BTW - the only surgical treatments I've read about with any long term lasting effects are "deep brain stimulation" implants, but they're still experimental, only done for very select chronic sufferers by a few surgeons.
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thebbz
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Re: sphenopalative ganglion block
« Reply #8 on: Dec 17th, 2007, 10:34pm » |
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 It this on the list...clusterbusters.com
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