Anyone have any experiance with this as I'm truely afraid of procedures and have never has this before. 1st off since Feb 2008 I have had deep left side head numbness, really bad pain elivated by emotions of all flavors. Hurts like heck when I lay the back of my neck or left side head on pillow so I sleep on right side which works because that is where my CPAP machine is anyways. So, I push and push since Feb 08 trying to get a diagnosis and was/is very hard since USAF told med staff here to not give me a difinitive diagnosis and they simply would not pursue for as they said in an email that I obtain hard copy of he would benifit significantly financially on his AF retirement fro it. So, approx 5 or 6 months ago a Denver University Neruo doc, female, very smart gave me her full attention but she was working at the VA as they slide in over there and help out. So, while wearing her VA hat and listening to me for a couple hrs and was really into this and cared... she said V. Zoster Sine Herpete which broken down into plain language means Shingles on the brain. The VA being the way they are I put in a claim and they don't like it and want to see the shingles like the idiot this COMP & PEN woman from India was as I scream at her that its in my head and if you had read anything you would know. I demanded "how do you rule it in or out"? Blood work! Well praise be, is that all. So, blood work was done and it came back 2.08 past the infection rate and they sent me a certified letter expressing the grave concern and for me to seek immediate attention due to this can be a deadly disease when internal like mine is. So, they even order a 2nd blood work and it's positive as well. So, here we are today as I had a civilian neuro doc online as well as the VA Neuro doc and they both want to say I don't have shingles and it's to cover up for the Denver University. You see, since early 2009 to up to about 9 months ago I had TRICARE approval to go to the Denver University Neruo Dept and was told they don't care about the lesions on my brain and patranized and sent on my way with nothing much more then pull my finger and look into my light kind of junk. So, when one of their very own while wearing a VA hat nailed it and backed it up with bloodwork that proves I have shingles which by the way will gone untreated and I guess I'm at about the 25 month mark is a lengthly time can and will cause damage to nerves in spine and head meaning nerve damage... makes since on the left side head pain. Now, fourth follow-up with VA and a fourth different team of VA/Denver Neguro docs you better beleive they have put all this together and the nice female doc that nailed the diagnosis as I ask for her will not be coming back as I was told! I bet not! And each of the followup appointment is with new neuro docs and want to say as they did on my last appointment two weeks ago... I don't know how this disease thing got started! Trying to turn focus from the obvious. But both my civilian neuro doc sent me to his pain specialist to kill/damage nerves that feed head/face and the VA team is now wanting to do steriods injections into the neck which means putting me to sleep on both of these. Good story huh? Has anyone had or know of anyone with thoese two procedures and I'm not to keen on having the nerves killed/damaged that feeds my head and face nore the steriod injections. Thoughts of you that may have been there and done that or are in the medical field please.