Suboccipital neuropathy after bone conduction device placement

Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics of a 70-year-old female with occipital neuropathy following bone conduction device surgery. Description: A 65-year-old woman underwent bone conduction device placement surgery on the left temporal bone. Postoperatively she progressively developed chronic pain at the implantation site. The pain led to minimal neck movement, which resulted in complaints of the shoulder and arm on the left side. She was treated by an orthopaedic surgeon for a frozen shoulder. Pain medication and occipital nerve blocking had no sustained effect on the pain. Discussion: Occipital neuropathy is a syndrome with continuous aching involving the occipital and parietal scalp caused by trauma or peripheral compression of the occipital nerves. The most common causes of occipital neuropathy are probably direct trauma to the nerve and hypertrophic fibrosis of subcutaneous tissue surrounding the nerve. Scar formation after surgery may therefore cause entrapment of the nerve. Conclusion: We describe a case of occipital neuropathy as a complication of BAHA surgery.