Format error sony dsc p10

Hi can you please help, I was recently at a wedding and took about 50 photo's on my camera, I use an external card reader, I put the memory stick in the card reader and it came up with no photo's on the memory stick, so I put the memory stick back in the camera and it came up with a blue screen flashing and saying format error and I now cant access any of my photo's, have I lost them forever?

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