Hi, I am 47 years old, female.
I was just diagnosed with left side intercostal neuralgia between the 10th intercostal nerve.
This happened brutaly 11 months ago immediately after the removal of my gallbladder by laparoscopie.
For 10 months afterwards, nothing has been attempted to attack this problem, as it was totally ignored by the medical corps, until 1 month ago and last week, when I stayed 1 week in the pain Clinic in a University Hospital here in Brussels.
Now, in one month they want to start me on a neuroleptic medicine, such as Lyrica or Redomex ( I refused anti-depressants). An infiltration has been proposed by the neurosurgean, but the doctor in charge of me prefers to firstly try the medicine approach.
When I asked the doctors if this horrible pain, coming in waves, mainly triggered by the sitting position and goes up to 8 on a scale from 0 - 10, could disappear by itself, they answered me that YES..it 'could', but without guarrantee that it will!
Unfortunately they can not tell the extent of damage done to the nerve.
I am not ready to resign yet, as in my case nothing at all has been attempted to heal this nerve.
Has anyone experienced this, how did you treat it and ... has the pain diminished or even disappeared?
Thanks for reading this.
Regards from Belgium,
Rosalie