Hi there,

As someone who's currently dealing with widespread radiooesteonecrosis in the left side of my head, I can tell you it can be a significant issue to treat.

I was first diagnosed with necrosis nearly two years ago, and it's only been in the last two months that they have fully quantified the extent of the necrosis.

It's taken a variety of different scans, and a radiologist willing to take on the task of doing extensive, comparative analysis of the results, to fully understand exactly where the necrosis ends and where healthy bone begins.

In my case, there is a baseball sized area involving both the mastoid process and the temporal bone. The necrotic bone has placed pressure on live bone, specifically a bone spur that's developed as a result of radiation has been pushed into my middle and inner ear, rupturing my eardrum. Since it's live bone, the exposure to air is excrutiating. That, coupled with the pain from the necrosis itself, has made for a bad couple of years.

Complicating this issue is finding doctors willing to undertake something that has no real treatment history has made this a really difficult issue, but that's a whole other story.

Contrary to conventional wisdom that would suggest dead bone = no discomfort; quite the contrary. It is VERY painful. In most cases it does need to be removed because of the potential for other problems increases if it's left alone. Hopefully your Doc can get a handle on the extent of the necrosis without too much additional work, and can get on with resolving the problem for you. It hurts, and it's good to know that they're going to at least try to stop it from hurting. Good luck!