On Tuesday I went up to London to see my consultant, I went armed with a notepad full of questions. I must say that I was extremely pleased with how the appointment went. I felt that my consultant listened to all of my concerns and really wanted to help me.
After explaining to my consultant all of my new symptoms and how they have resulted in an increase of Non Epileptic Seizures due to the pain, my consultant had a couple of ideas. First of all, after demonstrating to him how my neck spasms (it goes down towards my right shoulder, whilst rotating left, so I am in a sort of diagonally skywards position), he decided to administer Botox to my neck.
He administered the first lot of injections to my jaw to help relieve my Ormandibular Dystonia, this was relatively painless. He then went onto my neck. I expected this to be fairly painless as well. I was wrong. It was painful, I feel sorry for my mums poor fingers that I was already squeezing as I really do not like needles that are aimed at me. However I would rather have a couple of seconds of discomfort than hours of a hideous neck spasm.
My consultants second idea, is to introduce Clonzepam into my medication cocktail. At first I shall only take it when I think I am about to have a seizure. If that does not work then I shall start taking it nightly. His theory is that when I am in severe pain, my body goes into fight or flight mode and my bodies way of fleeing is by going into a Non Epileptic Seizure, therefore the medication should prevent my body from feeling like it has to fight or flee.
We discussed the role of dopamine, and he feels that my Dystonia is not dopa-responsive, so does not want to do a trial of levadope. Whilst this is disappointing, I can understand why he feels this, I know that I was only hoping I could try it, so that if did work I would be able to return to university in September. However I am not totally giving up on this idea. From the way my consultant spoke I was given the impression that many treatment avenues are closed for me because of the Non Epileptic Attacks. I am hoping that if the Clonzepam does its role right and stops them, then my Dystonia will be able to viewed in a light that is not tainted by them, it is at that point that I shall bringing up trying Levadope again.
For now I am going to sit back and count down the days to April 18th, when my riding lessons start-up again. I cannot wait to get back to it, its my happy place.
Dystonia and Me 