Current updates on my journey through chronic pain, include (1) the flu during midterm season (2) trigeminal neuralgia flares up and an apparent degenerative disc. due to MRI results.
1)This flu has lasted at least a week n a bit and has been kind enough to join me through midterms with a side of brain fog that makes everything fuzzy. Thus in between intimate dates with my washroom I've been studying for midterms and desperately trying to focus. While taking exuberant amounts of vitamins, soup and green tea. I am doing my best, and when that fails I watch funny John Oliver video's and pin funny jokes to make me laugh :)
2) The MRI results showed an inflamed trigeminal nerve explains the paralyzing pains I've had in my head lately and I would explain it myself but I found I don't remember a lot of what the Dr told me as brain fog seems to cloud it out. However Ainsworth institute explains it as being, "also known as tic douloureux, trigeminal neuralgia is a neuropathic disorder involving the trigeminal nerve (the 5th cranial nerve) that has been diagnosed as among the most painful conditions known to mankind. While its overall estimated incidence is low (1 in 20,000), there may be significantly more people suffering from this due to misdiagnosis. Patients with frequently describe stabbing, burning, electrical shocks, shooting pains in the distribution of the trigeminal nerve that can last seconds to hours. Things as harmless as the wind or chewing have been known to bring on the symptoms. Several theories exist as to the cause, but as of yet there is no consensus." This seems to be somewhat related to the neuropathic pains that I've been suffering. Yet life goes on, my Dr. has lowered my Lyrica dose down to 300mg in the morning and upped the Nortriptyline to 30 mg at night to help with the pain. Then also added in Glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM for the degenerative disc. Currently the Pain Specialist wants to pursue looking into the possibility of MS. And the Endocrinologist is looking into the reasoning behind my swollen thyroid, decreased function, multiple nodules and their sizes. So that is the medical side of life, and now back to studying, through brain fog to attempt midterms tomorrow.
~Elysia B
