I got Nerve block injection about 2 months and it didn’t help, then I got a epidural in my C8-T1 area and that did help my arm about 50%. I showed my pain management doctor my styloid imaging and he said “wow that’s quite impressive” lol. He recommended a stellate ganglion block which I’m scheduled for next week. Has anyone tried this injection? From what I read it calms the symptomatic nervous system and is used for atypical facial pain/PTSD patients. Also i got a referral to the Head of the Head& Neck department at USF here in tampa on 3/17 hoping he offer surgery. I’ve also been in correspondence with Veronica at Dr. Samji office asking if a Contrast scan is accepted. Dr Samji will consult with me but may require another scan without contrast which sucks because the initial consult is $500 and I not even have what he requests. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated and thank god for this outlet to vent.
I can’t comment on the stellate ganglion block myself, but using the magnifying glass search tool, I see there are some older posts (2018 & 19) where that is mentioned so you can search that topic & read what other members have said about it.
Even though Dr. Samji prefers a CT w/o contrast, I know we have members whose CTs w/ contrast he’s accepted. I think it would be worthwhile pressing for him to at least look at your CT to see if he can see what he needs to, before you get another scan. Veronica isn’t his regular MA (Yerelin is) so I suspect Veronica is filling in while Dr. Samji (& maybe Yerelin?) is on vacation. I hear he’s due to be back next week so perhaps you can get some clarification re: CT scan then. The cost for the consult is high but I understand it’s a 45 min consult which should give you plenty of time to ask questions & get a feel for whether he is the right doctor for you.
I want to remind you that if you have vascular ES, Dr. Samji is NOT the doctor to see. You’d be much better off seeing Dr. Hackman, Dr. Hepworth or even possibly Dr. Cognetti. Dr. Bunnell has also done successful vascular ES surgeries for some of our members. Sorry if I sound like a broken record. I just want to save you time, $ & make sure you see a doctor who will help you w/ the first surgery as having to go for a revision surgery later is no fun.
I don’t have much to offer in the way of advice, I’m just chiming in about the stellate ganglion block, which I find very interesting! I recently heard about it helping people with Long Covid.