Botox - What is your experience?

Hi

Since this is a rather long post, I've created headings, so it is possible just to skip it and read my questions =)

Introduction

My father came down with the shingles about 5 years ago and took his good time before going to the doctor, so he was diagnosed late, the anti-viral treatment seemed to have come too late.

He developed PHN and has been a sufferer since then. (mid-back, towards to the left front ribs).

Now, he is an old man, so, off-course, he has also been trough one operation in his left lung, where they had to insert a drain, right in the pain-area for the PHN). Also, a stroke happened during these 5 years, as well as pneumonia, urinary infection and as of late, back-problems, becauxe he walks crooked when he has his pains, straining his back.

He is a tough one and also very stubborn, but this takes it's tole.

Since they live in a remote area, going to the hospital takes more or less a whole day, and if you are haivng a down-period in PHN, I can understand that traveling and stress is extremely univiting.

Botox and relief

Anyway, he is using opiates to deal with the pains (oxicontin, oxynorm). I did some reasearch on this on the intenet a couple of years back and I did find various trials dealing with Botox (Botulinum 3) and the trials does show significant to mild to no effect, but in genereal, more than enough effect to show a statistical significance.

Luckily, my father has access to a doctor who is willing to help, so this doctor did some treatments on him (every 3 months), for about 1.5 years. The 3 month cycles were more or less spot on, but may have shifted a few days if pain was too great for travel.

Also, my father had 4 months off Botox as well, because of other medical issues mentioned above.

Unfortunately, with the other health issues disturbing the Botox-treatment, it's kind of hard for me to say how much/if it helped him.

I got my father to log all medication-usage, as well as his "pain rating" each day and when I chruned the numbers, it did (for me anyway) show that his medication was down when he was on Botox, but not pain-free, I would say "managable". The periods of great pain also seemed shorter and his good days were more plentiful and more good-to-ok days in a row.

Personally, he seemed to have given up on Botox these days, since it seemed that all his other health-issues was cancelling out the Botox-effects (stress??). But from looking at the data he logged during this time, I see a dramatic difference between On-Botox and Off-Botox......even though the period off-botox was also plagued with unrelated health-problems.

Question

Sorry for the long question though, but I am interested in experiences with Botox-treatment for PHN like:

Did you feel it gave relief?

Was the effect stable over time (several treatments)?

Is it worth going trough the process of getting nedles into the painful area, have 4-5 days of pain because of that, and then possibly, relief or reduced pain for up to 6-7 weeks?

I also saw something on youtube about Ozone, does anyone know if this is a undocumented scam, or does it actually work? =)

There is one thing that everyone here is correct about and that is that non-sufferers have no idea. We really don't, but we try to understand and the closest ones to you see that you suffer and would like nothing more than a cure for this hell. (Shingles is actually called "Hell-fire" where I live....fitting name

May a cure come soon to you all.

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