Lots of treatments I have tried...

The last time I wrote was about the arm pain that I was experiencing along with the headaches that I have. I had an EMG and nerve conduction study done on my right arm and some in my neck as well. The hard part about it is that once again it didn't show anything out of the ordinary besides mild nerve compression in my neck, but nothing that would need surgery to fix. Once again I am at the same point I have been with other doctors. A lot of people seem to think when I say I have headaches that they are migraines...that is not the case for me! Anything I have tried which helps migraines only makes my pain much worse. Therefore I will not be trying to do that is used to treat migraines.

for the last year these are the procedures that I have tried:
temporal auricular nerve block (on both sides of my head above the ear)
AA injection (in between the Axis and Atlas of the spine which is the top 2 vertebrae of the neck)
AO injection (in between the Atlas- C1 and the Occipital bone at the base of the head)
Stellate ganglion block on the right side of the neck close to the shoulder)
greater occipital nerve blocks (both sides at the back of the head)
 Cervical ESI 
Ketamine infusion (this didn't help at all)
trigger point injections in the neck, shoulders, head, and back in various muscles
botox- I will not be doing that again as it made everything worse- the muscles in my neck and forehead were so tight afterwards. The pain was more intense for a few months afterwards. This is usually a treatment for chronic migraines, but it does help with other types of headaches as well. My doctor basically told me we will not do that again.
Intralaminar ESI between C6 and C7 (this one I did the first time 6 years ago when my right arm first started having issues. It has helped each time with that pain, but not much with the headaches. This time I had the EMG 2 days after having it and it didn't help as much as it had in the past- at least my arm does not go numb like it was doing before)

That leads me up to today June 20- the plan was to do the lower occipital nerve endings for radiofrequency. However, yesterday I learned that my insurance doesn't cover this one since it is not proven to help. I still went to the appointment today, but we decided to change it a little bit by doing the diagnostic for the occipital nerve block. It was guided by ultrasound to place it in the right spot. We will see how it goes.. as always I am hopeful that it will be the right thing to help. I have had the radiofrequency in my neck before by C3-C5. When this is done it basically deadens the nerve endings, but those nerve endings grow back and then it needs to be repeated.

I have had people tell me to try the piercing on the ear. It has not be medically proven that it really does help, it also isn't covered by insurance and it has only really been tried for migraine headaches.

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