Trigeminal Neuralgia

Ever heard of that? I hadn't until Sunday. For a couple of weeks I have had the sensation on pin pricks on the left side of my face. Nothing too painful just annoying. Then Wednesday, I thought I had a toothache and went to the dentist who did x-rays and found nothing wrong. Still I was having some pain on my left side of my mouth.
Sunday during breakfast I had a sharp stabbing pain on the left side of my mouth that would only feel better if I applied ice inside my mouth. All day Sunday I kept ice in my mouth until about 2:00 when I looked through some old medication and found some Darvecett my husband had used. (I know! You shouldn't take someones else's prescription) I was desperate and took some. That relieved the pain for about two hours, then the pain returned. Took some more but this time it did not work at all. At 9:30 that night decided I had to get some relief so my husband took me to the E.R.

E.R. Dr did some poking around in my mouth and said he did not think this was a tooth problem, but his main concern was to stop the pain. He gave me morphine. This did not ease the pain at all. He gave he more morphine. Still I had pain, he had been researching my symtoms all the while and thought maybe I had Trigeminal Neuralgia. This is treated with an anti-seizure drug. He gave he some of that. Still in pain, so he administered the 3rd dose of morphine. This time I passed out. Not sure if it was from the pain or the amount of pain medication.

I really don't remember anything much until Monday night when I woke up in a hospital room totally confused about why I was there. I remembered being very sick and throwing up. My husband said they gave me phenagren for nausea and apparently I am allergic to it as I broke out in a rash and started itching all over. Then they gave me benadryl to counter act it. I sort of remember my Dad bending over me telling me he was leaving and that he loved me, and I remember my sweet mother in law rubbing lotion on my arms and legs trying to keep me from scratching so much.

Tuesday morning my Dr. came in and explained that I had been over medicated because they could not find anything that could relieve my pain. They put me on an anti-seizure drug that dulls the trigeminal nerves in the face. After sending me to the dental lab to rule out anything dental, they did a MRI and a MRA checking for tumors or anuresyms that could be causing the nerves to act up. Thank God, both of these reports came back negative.

I finally got to go home last night at 9:30. I tried to go in to work today but only lasted a couple of hours until I became very weak and dizzy. I guess all the pain medication has not been purged from my body yet. The good news is that while there is no cure for this, it is treatable with antiseizure medications that I will take a very low dose of daily.

I learned one thing, never "google" your disease! I did and when it came up on wikipedia it said this problems was also called the "Suicide" disease because of the amount of people who had taken their lives because they couldn't stand the pain. Good Grief!

So far, I have very little pain left. I have so many wonderful friends who have been praying relentlessly for me and it is working!

So no time for pity parties, let's move on!

Blessings

Linda