Janice Eisen's headaches were taking over her life. "I barely functioned, and constantly had to tell people that I felt too bad to do anything," she describes. "I wasn't myself with my husband and two children, who were 7 and 2 years old at the time."
After 10 years of being prescribed an assortment of powerful painkillers and being hospitalized for head pain, Eisen reached the point where she was unable to work and responsibility for parenting fell mostly on her husband. According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, that's when her physician learned of Dr. Robert Levy's pioneering work with medicines and neurosurgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's pain-management clinic.
Dr. Levy pioneered a procedure known as supraorbital nerve stimulation or SOS, in which neurotransmitters are implanted into the forehead to block head pain. Tiny wires are burrowed under the skin until the precise location of pain is marked by a tingling response to electrical charge. The wires are kept in place for a week, and if pain is lessened and the patient is comfortable with the technology, neurotransmitters are surgically implanted under local anesthesia. The patient is able to control pain relief by manually adjusting the level of electrical stimulation through a hand held device.
"Our patients are desperate for relief," says Dr. Levy. "We now have treatments that open up a whole new range of possibilities. We're able to offer hope to patients who had none before. In fact, these procedures have transformed some patients almost instantaneously, allowing them to return to such everyday pursuits as running, swimming and gardening shortly after surgery."