Occipital neuralgia is ruining my life. I can't live like this anymore.

I was lying in bed at 3am with a heating pad crammed behind my neck, crying.

Not because of the pain. Because the heating pad had slid off for the third time and I didn't have the energy to fix it again. Seven years of this and I couldn't even keep heat on the right spot.

My husband was asleep next to me. He doesn't wake up anymore. He used to. He's learned there's nothing he can do.

•••

I got diagnosed when I was 49. I'm 56 now.

Before that I thought I had migraines. Two years of thinking that. Then my neurologist did the nerve block — needle at the base of my skull, anesthetic along the occipital nerve. The pain stopped.

For four hours.

Four hours of turning my head without bracing. Four hours of my scalp not burning. Four hours of remembering what normal felt like.

Then it wore off.

That was seven years ago. That's still the best four hours I've had.

•••

I don't even remember what order I tried things anymore.

Nerve blocks every three months. Drive to the clinic, get the injection, feel human for a few days, feel it creeping back, count the weeks until the next one. $200 to $400 every time. My insurance fought me on every single one.

Gabapentin. Took the edge off the daily burning but I gained 20 pounds and started forgetting words mid-sentence. My daughter would talk to me and I'd stare at her trying to remember what she just said.

Muscle relaxers. Didn't stop the pain. Just made me too drowsy to care. Sleeping through it is not the same as relief.

Chiropractor twice a week. Helped the neck stiffness. Didn't touch the nerve pain. $85 a visit for four months. I'm on a fixed income. I stopped going.

TENS unit. Put the pads on my scalp. The electrical sensation on top of the nerve pain was so bad I ripped them off and threw the whole thing in a drawer. It's still there.

Massage. Felt incredible. The ON came back before I reached my car.

I Googled nerve decompression surgery one night. Read about them cutting into the back of your skull to free the nerve. I bookmarked the page. That's where I was.

•••

At some point I just stopped trying. Not a decision. Just a slow giving up. I took the gabapentin. I used the heating pad that didn't stay where I needed it. I canceled things on bad days. I showed up on medium days because medium was just my normal now.

The heating pad was the only thing I still used every night. Not because it worked great. Because it was all I had left.

Heat helped the tightness between attacks — that deep constant tension at the base of my skull that never fully lets go. The thing that sits underneath the sharp pain. The thing that keeps the nerve irritated enough to fire.

But the heating pad couldn't do the one thing I needed. It wouldn't stay at the base of my skull. It'd rest on the middle of my neck — too low. I'd push it up. It'd slide down. I'd hold it with my hand. My arm would get tired. The heat would fade in ten minutes anyway.

Every night. Same fight. For years.

•••

One night it slid off again and I just sat up and stared at it on the couch cushion.

I picked up my phone. Same thing I always do. Same search I've done a hundred times. Something for neck pain. Something with heat. The same Amazon results I've scrolled past a hundred times. Shiatsu massagers my scalp can't handle. Cervical pillows. Weighted wraps that sit on the shoulders. TENS units. The same stuff that's been there every time I've looked.

I kept scrolling. Past the first page. Past the second. I was on like page 11 when I found a small company I'd never heard of. The product wasn't even listed with the neck massagers. It was called "Lanarie Atlas Relief."

It looked different from everything else. It's shaped to sit at the base of the skull — not the middle of the neck, not the shoulders. Right where the C1 and C2 are. Right where the nerve runs. The exact spot I've been trying to get heat onto for seven years. It just sits there and holds heat. That's it. That's all it does.

No big brand. No flashy packaging. I almost scrolled past it. But the shape — the way it was contoured for the base of the skull specifically — I'd never seen anything designed for that exact spot before.

I ordered it and put my phone down.

•••

Three days later it showed up.

I plugged it in, laid back on the couch, closed my eyes. I didn't expect anything. I was just tired and it was warm.

About ten minutes in, something happened.

The tightness at the base of my skull — that deep thing that's always there between attacks — it was softening. Not like the heating pad where you get a few minutes before it slides off. This stayed. The heat was still there. Still in the right spot. Still consistent.

I laid there for twenty minutes. When I sat up, the base of my skull felt different. Looser. Like something had unclenched that had been clenched so long I forgot it was clenched.

That night I went to bed and the burning wasn't there. The baseline tension I feel every single night when I put my head on the pillow — it was lower.

•••

I've been using it every night since.

The sharp attacks still happen. When my ON flares, it flares. Nothing stops that except the nerve block.

But the attacks are less frequent. I went from three or four bad days a week to about one. My neurologist thinks it's because the baseline tension is lower between attacks, so the nerve isn't as irritated going into each day.

I went from nerve blocks every three months to every five.

Gabapentin on bad days instead of every day.

I slept through the night four times last week.

I sat at the kitchen table Saturday morning and cried. The good kind. I woke up without the burning and couldn't remember the last time that happened.

•••

I don't know your ON. I don't know if your attacks are like mine. I don't know what's compressing your nerve or how long you've been dealing with this.

But if you're where I was — flat, done, fighting with a heating pad at 3am, bookmarking surgery pages, too tired to try one more thing —

This changed my baseline. The bad days got less bad. The good days showed up more. After seven years, that's not a small thing. That's my life back.

This is what I use. Every night.