Wednesday 11 June 2014

Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness

Today was a shitty day. I don't apologise for the language as this is my blog, and I need to vent. 

This pain is not getting any easier to deal with. How much pain can the body and mind endure? I have reached my limit and I am hoping every day that either my medications will start to work, or this pain would dull for a while.

If you are wondering in disbelief about the pain I describe, let me paint you a picture. 

Imagine that your face is being burned by acid. How painful would that be? Now imagine that pain ALL the time. Not pretty.
Not only does my face burn constantly, but I am getting hundreds of electric like jolts of pain every day. Imagine being struck by lightening over and over again. Not nice. 

Along with the horrific burning and shocks, I constantly feel like I am being stabbed in the ear with an icepick. 

Now I am not writing this for pity or any such crap. I am pissed off. I have went through almost a year of this, and just when I have reached my pain threshold, it gets worse. 

I also don't believe that Trigeminal Neuralgia is as rare as the documentation wants us to believe. I know that there are people out there that have been misdiagnosed. I was in A&E and there were nurses and a few doctors that never heard of Trigeminal Neuralgia. If my medical file wasn't available and if I hadn't insisted that my consultant was informed, I would have been sent home with a couple of paracetamol and told to rest. 

That is just plain wrong. I have read countless accounts of people being treated in that way, and this crap goes on for years! I know that I am lucky to have a diagnosis so quickly and I have had a serious amount of tests and scans that aren't widely available. 

If you are reading this and you feel that you are not being diagnosed properly, speak out. Nobody knows your body better than you. These doctors are being paid to look after you! It is their job. I know that doctors and consultants can be quite intimidating, but they are being paid a lot of dough to fix us. 

We really and truly need more awareness. The blank looks that you get when you say the words Trigeminal Neuralgia will wear you down. I even had some dumbass say to me that that Trigeminal Neuralgia is a fancy name for a headache. I wanted to rip her throat out, and that is me being nice. 

Now I am not normally an angry person, I am quite calm although I have one hell of a temper. 

We are approaching the International Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day on October 7th. Our teal ribbon is available to download on every search engine and it should be shared around all social media sites. Awareness will lead to understanding, funding, and eventually a cure. 

Trigeminal Neuralgia and other forms of facial pain are life altering conditions. How to deal with these conditions on a daily basis is a challenge and one we must win. 



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