Chiefly for me
These pages sometimes function as a pain diary: something an involved patient keeps for the guidance of his/her clinician. That's today's purpose. The interested are welcome.
The trigeminal neuralgia has been approaching differently this year. In past autumns, there have been occasional sharp twinges that only qualify by their location, which have gone on for two or three months without interfering with much of anything. This is called precursor pain. Then the Beast arrives suddenly, with full force.
This year, there has been an observable escalation over the past four to six weeks. Using the Mankoski pain scale, the trigeminal sensations have been rising from the usual Level 2 or 3 of precursor pain to levels around 5. The duration of the pain has steadily increased from a sudden, intermittent stab to the persistent "trip hammer effect" characteristic of my TN. Even those haven't lasted very long...20 minutes at most.
The Beast—a full-blown TN episode—arrived this morning after I went out and ran the snow blower for about 40 minutes in piercing cold wind, despite wearing a balaclava, a hoodie, a flapped fur hat and hooded parka. As usual, onset was very sudden—within two minutes—and escalated to the trip hammer effect at Level 6 to 7. Being at home, I took 1 mg Klonopin immediately and was down for two hours. I was able to eat some lunch, then was down again, mostly in pain hangover mode, for another hour and a half.
So welcome back to another lovely winter. I used to love winter, and it seems especially bad karma to have that pleasure taken away.
Fuck this.
The trigeminal neuralgia has been approaching differently this year. In past autumns, there have been occasional sharp twinges that only qualify by their location, which have gone on for two or three months without interfering with much of anything. This is called precursor pain. Then the Beast arrives suddenly, with full force.
This year, there has been an observable escalation over the past four to six weeks. Using the Mankoski pain scale, the trigeminal sensations have been rising from the usual Level 2 or 3 of precursor pain to levels around 5. The duration of the pain has steadily increased from a sudden, intermittent stab to the persistent "trip hammer effect" characteristic of my TN. Even those haven't lasted very long...20 minutes at most.
The Beast—a full-blown TN episode—arrived this morning after I went out and ran the snow blower for about 40 minutes in piercing cold wind, despite wearing a balaclava, a hoodie, a flapped fur hat and hooded parka. As usual, onset was very sudden—within two minutes—and escalated to the trip hammer effect at Level 6 to 7. Being at home, I took 1 mg Klonopin immediately and was down for two hours. I was able to eat some lunch, then was down again, mostly in pain hangover mode, for another hour and a half.
So welcome back to another lovely winter. I used to love winter, and it seems especially bad karma to have that pleasure taken away.
Fuck this.
Labels: trigeminal neuralgia, winter
posted by Uncle | 00:09
4 Comments:
Sucks :-( I'm sorry.
Yep, TN really sucks. I wish I could say something positive. Oh!! I can. I'm still alive after six years with the fucker. It's family that really count when it's at it's worst.
Good luck Jim, and hang in there. I'm coming up on my 10th anniversary with this. Every day I give thanks that I wasn't born sooner, before there was any hope of treatment. Understanding family and friends mean so much.
Hugs
Hope the Vitamin K helps you.
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