New Member with Questions (facial pain/trigeminal neuralgia)

[MikeInFlorida]

Hello all,

This is my first post – I am glad to have found this forum. I am here to help find some answers. I will try to keep my intro short.

I discovered TMS just a day or two ago. I have spent the past month and a half chasing some awful pain which most closely fits the diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia. I have been informally diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia by a few different doctors.

It started in June. I had been going to a chiropractor for a tweaked shoulder muscle that I hurt when weightlifting. After my third treatment, that afternoon, I had some pretty awful symptoms. The left side of my face felt as if it were burning. My cheeks felt sore and my skin felt tight and tingly. Panic flooded my mind. However, I worked my way through it and the next two days I was literally symptom free.

However, on the third day afterward, I awoke with a horrible migraine on the same side that I had the burning. The migraine abated, and the burning facial sensation once again crept back it. Ever since then, I have had this symptom daily, yet it seems to vary greatly in intensity.

I was checked for major issues – no stroke, no artery dissection, no damage to neck or brain. Steroids helped reduce symptoms. So has valium. The only thing that makes it truly go away is sleeping. I wake up pain free most mornings, only to feel it come back as the day progresses. Panic and anxiety often accompany the pain.

I have suspicion that it may be TMS. Here's why: the pain seems to change its patterns greatly. Sometimes it is barely noticeable. Sometimes it is beating me down. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes its sharp. Sometimes its achy. Sometimes it partially creeps into the other side of my face (not a typical symptom on trigeminal neuralgia)


I have four main questions:

1. Information on TMS appearing as trigeminal neuralgia or nerve pain seems limited. It seems like most of the focus is on back or muscular pain. Are there any examples of someone suffering from TN induced by TMS?

2. I started seeing another chiropractor (an upper cervical specialist) for this. He felt confident he could help. Would it be counterproductive to treat this as TMS while seeing a chiropractor? He diagnosed me with a C1 -C2 misalignment and offered a treatment plan to correct it.

3. I feel as if there are avenues I haven't explored yet – vascular nerve compression, dental issues, etc. Should I explore these before pursuing TMS to help eliminate doubt?

4. I am a teacher. I am scheduled to start work next Monday. The thought of returning to the classroom has left me with awful anxiety, which has exacerbated my symptoms. I have the financial means and security to take unpaid leave – would this be helpful or counterproductive?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I would appreciate any help or feedback!

-Mike

 

[Steve Ozanich]

1) TN is TMS. I've spoken to dozens of people who have had it and healed from it. Mostly females, but males experience it too. It doesn't matter "where in the body" the pain is, TMS can strike any where.

2) You have to stop seeing chiros to heal, no matter how good it feels right afterward. Long term healing requires ceasing all physical treatments of any kind.

3) You can keep testing ad nauseum if you like. If there's no malignant process occurring then it's more likely that you have TMS. The testing itself can produce more chronic responses due to a host of complex reasons.

4) This one is a matter of choice. If you have time to work and learn more about TMS then you can work. If you won't have time to learn about TMS then you may want to take some time off. People heal all the time while working, but some need time off. But generally speaking there is no counterproductiveness in doing both. Is that a word? Are you an English teacher?

SO

 

[plum]

Mike, I *have* atypical trigeminal neuralgia and am well on the healing path.

I think Steve has covered all the bases but from personal experience I had to rule out dental issues, a problem not helped by the fact that my dentist was a total dick. I changed to the world's gentlest female dentist and only after she gave me a thorough examination was I able to commit to the tms healing. Some (all?) of us need to deal with these nagging doubts and essentially it's part of the learning curve. At some point you just get what TMS is and how it's doing its thing in your body~mind but between this epiphany and where you are now is the reason for this forum.

You are so shiny and new to tms that I don't wish to overwhelm with information. It will suffice to say that TN is TMS and that TMS healing will heal TN.

Rejoice. This is the first day of the best of the rest of your life.

Plum.

 

[MikeInFlorida]

Steve, thanks for the sound advice. I thought that I had heard your name somewhere else... didn't realize it until now, but I have your book in my Amazon shopping cart! I am going to be reading it after I finish The Divided Mind.

Plum, thanks for the words of encouragement. I came into this skeptical (as I'm sure most are). It can be hard to not be. I don't think I have hit epiphany yet. I read The Mindbody Prescription cover to cover yesterday. Dr. Sarno's words rang true, and I do feel more hopeful, but I am overwhelmed with anxiety and negative thoughts, mostly from spending the last month or two obsessively searching for answers.

An unusual thing happened when reading last night. My pain lessened, almost completely faded from my original side, and then appeared on the other side of my face, in a way it has never manifested before. It was a very strange experience. It actually left me feeling very positive that I might be onto something after all. The reversed pain continued into today, until I let doubt and negative thought enter my mind, and then it seemed to go back to its old patterns. I went to inquire about taking FMLA from my job, and almost like clockwork, the pain flooded in as I was talking with the person.

Still not sure if I will be going back to work or taking extended leave. Life's pressures seem to be pulling me in two different directions.