Drilling into my head...

So a year and a half ago I woke up with a toothache. The pain progressed over the course of a week until I felt like I had electric shocks on the right side of my face. It happened anywhere from 10-50 plus times a day, for 1-15 seconds each time. It took me a month or two to get the right diagnosis, but it is called TRIGEMINAL NEURALGIA. It is also called "the suicide disease" for the pain and frustration it causes in people, making them want to kill themselves. Not fun!

Trigeminal Neuralgia has a number of causes, and it is found mostly in older woman or as an early sign of MS. What happens is the nerve from our face has three branches (hence the "tri"), one of which is rubbing against a blood vessel on the stem of my brain. There are only a few doctors in the country that can accurately detect this and operate on it. My first MRI, with a local Neuralogist, did not show any signs of rubbing against the nerve. I flew to New York to a leading expert and he immediately detected the problem.

What hasn't it seemed to bother me lately?
For the last year or so I have found different medications (anti-convulsants) to help the minimize the pain, so that most of the time I forget it's there. However, each medicine eventually runs its course and the pain returns. While my current medication works, it is only a matter of months before it wears off.

Brain Surgery?
Yes, I will need to have surgery on the stem of my brain. They will knock me out, drill a quarter size whole behind my right ear, and go in to separate the blood vessel from the nerve. It takes a couple hours, gives me an awful headache, but then I should be fine. It has over a 95% success rate, and there are very few complications.

When?
Sometime in the next 2-3 months.

Fun Stuff!!!!!