Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Ever wanted to bang your head against the wall?

Well, I have...
Especially the last few days since my trigeminal neuralgia is completely out of control....

If you're not familiar with trigeminal neuralgia I'll explain a bit what it feels like. Like a burning match is held closely to your face, like thousands of needles are stuck in your face, like a toothache that won't just pass by, like your eye is about to burst, and I can go on and on and on about it.
It's really painful and it get's you completely out of focus. Even laughing, eating, brushing my teeth and speaking hurt...
Some doctors say it's like a combination of migraines and epilepsy.

Monday I went back to my general physician, because I couldn't bare the pain any longer. He gave me the 'bad' pills, like I like to call them, there's some evil written on the leaflet, and of course that worked like a charm: knocked out for the next 48 hours. But seriously knocked out, sleeping, eating, sleeping, drinking, sleeping, eating, sleeping, watch some tv, sleeping again. And so it went on and on.

Tuesday I went to see my neurologist who could only tell me that he didn't see on the scan that the nerve was damaged which was good news, because that could lead to other very bad diseases as MS and stuff. No tumors, brain is okay. Now then that means the trigeminal neuralgia doesn't really has a cause, which apparently happens more often to young women. I got a new type of medication, Orap Forte, and that is meant to be very good for the pains caused by the tn. Also this pill knocked me out, but less severe than the other did. I feel a bit shaky and all, but I guess that will pass by (or at least I hope so).

Now we're Wednesday already and I haven't gone to work at all this week, which makes me feel pretty guilty for those who have to cover for me. Doctor gave me a whole week of sick leave, because the medication gets me really out of concentration. It wouldn't be wise to drive a car or sit behind a computer for the whole day. This blog in fact is my first time behind the computer for longer then sending an e-mail to my boss since Saturday.

I actually hope to raise some kind of awareness with this blog, because not everyone wants to understand this disease and the pain it causes.

Thanks for reading.



P.S.: If you want to learn more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001751/