Geez where does the week go?

Oh yeah, yesterday I was trying to hold on. I kept on having these short severe attacks of pain in BOTH of my problem areas (it's typically just in the temple area). I was trying to work on figures for my paper (Excel will be an even bigger pain the ass when your pain is taking up most of your attention). By the end of the day, I was trying not to cry (at times) and my eyes were burning due to being so dry. I managed to get home, and I spend an hour trying to "sleep it off"*. Just after 6, the weather pressure dropped enough for me to relax a bit and do some laundry.

I've learned from the listserv that I'm not the only one who is sensitive to changes in the weather pressure. However, many of them have classical TN. In classical Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN), the patient experiences episodes of very intense, electrical shock pain for a few seconds to a few minutes. TN is considered one of the worst pains a person can experience.

My pain can feel as if my head is going to explode from the temple area, to intense burning pain, to stabbing pain. My pain can last for minutes to months. Since the duration of the pain is different than classical TN, it is called atypical. However, the great insurance company has no diagnosis code for atypical TN, sphenopalatine neuralgia, etc. So all those diseases are called "Atypical Facial Pain". It sounds so stupid to me since if the insurance company doesn't know what you REALLY have, then they may not approve a necessary treatment (if for example, it doesn't seem appropiate for ATFP). Thankfully, my PPO coverage has come in handy, there's still a lot to be desired from it as well.

*= "Sleeping it off" is one of my personal jokes. When the pain is raging 24/7, I can close my eyes, time passes by, and I open them to find it 7 hours later. This does not mean I'm ready to jump out of bed and face the day. My doctor tells me that the pain keeps me from getting the sleep one needs to get rest. You can guess what can happen to your ability to go to work and go on with your life if you've been through that same night for seven in a row. I don't want to be specific, but I consider times like that my low point.

Hey, there's other things going on in my life besides my pain. A couple of days ago, I got a letter in the mail hand addressed to the former occupant of my place. Her Arizona license-plated VW bug was found abandoned in Washington state and that her vehicle was impounded. Since I do not have any forwarding info for her, I called the number on the letter. The guy kinda laughed than mumbled something about "happens all the time with abandoned vehicles" and told me that I would still get the letter saying when the vehicle will be put up for auction. Feel kind of bad about it, especially if it was stolen from her. But I can't do much about it than what I already did.

I'm going to try and put up a site that has information about TN and other facial neuralgias. If you have a site that you want to recommend, e-mail me. This site for week 8/4/-10 is: Centre for Cranial Nerve Disorders. A site based in Canada, has information on rarely heard of craniofacial neuralgias as well as animations, and tutorials.