Things Beastly
The Beast is of course still with me. Trigeminal Neuralgia can and does go away for a while, but it is never really cured. It's those random remissions that make TN such a magnet for quacks. They can pitch their woo until the poor sucker has a remission, disappear, and be nowhere in sight when it comes back.
It's frustrating to those who have it, and even more perhaps to their loved ones and healthcare providers, that triggers and the course of the disorder can change over time. Time was that a big part of my containment plan was simply being a near shut-in for five months a year. It's no longer enough.
It also used to be that the year's first episode of breakthough pain brought on a couple of months of horrors once or twice a day. So far that hasn't been happening, and we should be grateful for what blessings we can get.
In place of that one gets something more like the usual picture of TN. This is what I've started to call sucker-punches that can hit at any time of day, several times a day, year-round. Again, so far the pain level hasn't been anything that my drugged-up nervous system, with its ridiculously elevated pain threshold*, can't handle. What this would be like without enough carbamazepine and gabapentin to flatten a normal person doesn't bear thinking about. It's a rough ride.
We shall see what the rest of the winter brings.
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*Last summer I had an ancient ladder fall apart under me. After falling several feet and managing to land upright, I used a few words from my Navy vocabulary and moved on to another ladder. I limped for a fortnight, and the bruises from this are just now fading away. I reflect that someone not floating on a cushion of anti-convulsants would probably have ended up in the Emergency Department. This happens all the time: collateral damage of TN treatment.
It's frustrating to those who have it, and even more perhaps to their loved ones and healthcare providers, that triggers and the course of the disorder can change over time. Time was that a big part of my containment plan was simply being a near shut-in for five months a year. It's no longer enough.
It also used to be that the year's first episode of breakthough pain brought on a couple of months of horrors once or twice a day. So far that hasn't been happening, and we should be grateful for what blessings we can get.
In place of that one gets something more like the usual picture of TN. This is what I've started to call sucker-punches that can hit at any time of day, several times a day, year-round. Again, so far the pain level hasn't been anything that my drugged-up nervous system, with its ridiculously elevated pain threshold*, can't handle. What this would be like without enough carbamazepine and gabapentin to flatten a normal person doesn't bear thinking about. It's a rough ride.
We shall see what the rest of the winter brings.
-------------------------------------
*Last summer I had an ancient ladder fall apart under me. After falling several feet and managing to land upright, I used a few words from my Navy vocabulary and moved on to another ladder. I limped for a fortnight, and the bruises from this are just now fading away. I reflect that someone not floating on a cushion of anti-convulsants would probably have ended up in the Emergency Department. This happens all the time: collateral damage of TN treatment.
Labels: trigeminal neuralgia
posted by Uncle | 00:20
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