Hi, apparently its not the norm, but I too got extreme pain. Warmth and a soft memory foam pillow helped lots. I have a underlying sensory neuropathy which is what they figured caused mine to hurt. My brothers didnt hurt, but he got it worse than me - for example my eye could still close, if on a delay! I took about a month off of work - hard to say exactly as it was round Christmas and the statutory holidays at first. Electrical acupuncture did help me a lot I think - I was already seeing an acupuncturist so she dashed over the next days and did quite a few sessions over the holiday season. I get it sometimes now on my arthritic knee. For my neuropathy it definitely helps by approximately halving the diameter of the painful area, although in Bells its such a small area that this isn’t the same.