Ungentle dental

Not going so far as to retire the Zombie Bunny hat, but air changes are taking second place to dental triggers in my TN tale. This is a classic trigger and a grim one. Before medicine discovered the value of anticonvulsants in controlling trigeminal neuralgia, people with this problem commonly starved to death. That gives the uninitiated an idea of the kind of pain we're dealing with: untreated, one would rather starve than take on the pain.

Just now, I wish I could get that reaction going, because I have an over-abundance of reserve calories to work through.

This isn't entirely new to me. It has shown up several times in the aftermath of breakthroughs started by temperature. This year, for the second time, it has started following a trip to the dentist. I've always found the "electric shock" analogy a bit inaccurate when describing triggers in the nerve's temporal branch.* It is very accurate when discussing TN in the maxillary and mandibular branches.*

The other day, during my usual mental retreat in an episode, another unwelcome analogy occurred to me. I recalled seeing some sword and sandal epic as a kid in which the unhappy inmates of a dungeon were tortured by having hot lead dripped onto them. This came to mind because something very similar happens along the part of the mandibular branch that descends from the Gasserian ganglion*: drips of red-hot pain every few seconds. This sensation is new to me and obviously very disagreeable. It's enough to distract one from the trick of retreating into the unaffected hemisphere for relief.

Dental triggers carry with them the possibility of year-round entertainment by the the Beast.  Oh joy.

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*This stuff is for people up on their medical terminology. If you aren't, google it.