My wife had her treatment – it lasted only 49 minutes. We got there at 6am and didn't get out until noon. It certainly is more painful than Cyberknife. She got 4 injections of local anesthetic at the sites where the head support frame is attached. She is pretty stoic and has a high pain tolerance; she's had a ton of sub-q tumor surgeries under local. But she said this was the worst. The spot where the pins will go gets filled up with the anesthetic fluid – quite pronounced. Once it got working after 20 seconds she had no pain at all the rest of the time.
My wife had her treatment – it lasted only 49 minutes. We got there at 6am and didn't get out until noon. It certainly is more painful than Cyberknife. She got 4 injections of local anesthetic at the sites where the head support frame is attached. She is pretty stoic and has a high pain tolerance; she's had a ton of sub-q tumor surgeries under local. But she said this was the worst. The spot where the pins will go gets filled up with the anesthetic fluid – quite pronounced. Once it got working after 20 seconds she had no pain at all the rest of the time. They attach the frame with four pins and they tighten them all the way to the skull. They pulled out an allen wrench and the neurologist really reefed on it – I was surprised at how tight they got it.
They gave her an Atavin – sedative – and that made her pretty sleepy throughout the entire procedure. After the head frame attachment it was a piece of cake – get the MRI – wait 90 minutes while they do the gamma radiation plan, then the treatment itself. She's been napping all day in recovery, but otherwise in pretty good shape.
Given the choice she would do the Cyberknife again in a hearbeat over Gammaknife.
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