I'd heard of the trigeminal nerve since I was a biology major but reading about it in a textbook while preparing for a test on cranial nerves is far different than suddenly being afflicted by trigeminal neuralgia.
What is a neuralgia? It's a fancy way of saying "nerve pain." Trigeminal neuralgia describes the trigeminal nerve, one of the cranial nerves serving the face:
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So, trigeminal neuralgia basically means "lightning bolt inside your fucking face."
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| Originally saved here. |
According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, "Trigeminal neuralgia, also known as tic douloureux, sometimes is described as the most excruciating pain known to humanity."
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| Trigeminal Neuralgia: Kicking ass and being recognized for this by NEUROSURGEONS |
What is "tic douloureux"? Oh, it's a fancy French word for "wince." You know the way you might wince if a serial killer was stabbing you? Same thing, except the stabber is invisible.
I was thinking about this. When we watch movies, you may see someone stabbed or branded with a hot cattle iron or a struck by a lightning bolt. You see them wince and fall to the ground. But the cause is obvious so no one is like "bro, what just happened? You're weird!"
But if you're standing on line at the supermarket and a trigeminal neuralgia attack strikes, no one can SEE it. It feels LIKE a stabbing, so there'll be all that wincing and body part grabbing, the way you would if you wanted to contain the innards behind whatever had been slashed open, but in reality, you're standing on this slow line and nothing bad is happening in the world so no one can tell why you're having a personal emergency.
The disease is also apparently known as "suicide disease" because you wish for death rather than bear it. I would never have fully understood this before experiencing it.
Luckily, medicine helps, and I'm on an anti-epileptic medicine (despite not having epilepsy), because "sodium-channel inhibitors" inhibit neural activity and the goal is to reduce the transmissions of electrical impulses hitting the trigeminal nerve from the brain.
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| Realistic photo after "neural activity" is reduced... |
One thought about where trigeminal neuralgia comes from is that since the nerve originates in the brain stem, a blood vessel may bump up against it and over time, wear away the insulatory outer sheath or myelin.
How does trigeminal neuralgia manifest? It really does feel like being stabbed. The sensations last a few seconds to a few minutes. (Unless you have the "atypical" kind and it's constant.) You're fine, until the pain hits, a 10 on a 10 scale. Or maybe a 20 on a scale of 1-10. It's unbearable.
One of the symptoms (among severe "lancinating" or stabbing pain) is "anxiety at the thought of the pain returning."
DUDE, entire MOVIES have been made based on the fear of the serial killer returning. Hollywood is FULL of them.
Having trigeminal neuralgia is like having a little serial killer sitting on your shoulder and they just stab your face when they feel like it.
It can be multiple times in a minute, or maybe one time in an hour. You just don't know. And when you go to sleep, the little serial killer hangs out with you, sometimes stabbing you out of sleep. Someone make a movie of THAT. Last night was the first time in 4 nights I actually GOT sleep because the medicine worked (it seems like it takes a little while to fully kick in). So as you can see, it's been great.
Why can't I just get the flu like normal people???
