Melanie Thomson who hails from Johannesburg suffered with trigeminal neuralgia for about eight years. She experienced headaches and ‘spikes’ of severe pain through the jaw, cheek, and head.
“The pain can come on suddenly, for example when I brushed my teeth, or when talking or laughing. My mouth went numb, and I couldn’t eat properly. The pain comes and goes, and even at times when I was not in pain I lived in dread of the next attack.”
She then had a microvascular decompression operation, which Melanie describes as “quite a hectic operation”. “They had to cut my hair and the incision they made on my head was quite big, about as long as my hand. I spent two days in intensive care, and then two more days in hospital. I was out of action for four to six weeks after the operation. I had a few months of relief after the microvascular decompression surgery, but my symptoms came back.”
A year later, Thomson’s doctors gave her the news that the latest in non-invasive cranial radiosurgery, the Gamma Knife Icon, would soon be introduced for the first time in Southern Africa at Johannesburg’s Netcare Milpark Hospital, and that she was a candidate for this type of treatment.
“At first it seemed a bit scary because the doctors said that I would be awake during the treatment,” she relates. “First, the Gamma Knife South Africa team put a frame on my head and explained that this was to ensure that the head doesn’t move during the treatment. I was put at ease by the specialist team who told me what was happening every step of the way. All I had to do was lay still for 25 minutes, it was painless and there was no sound,” she remembers.
“I felt a little nauseous afterwards, but compared to the operation I had previously, Gamma Knife Icon treatment was a walk in the park,” she concluded.
