Try if you can to imagine a fear of swallowing? try and imagine a fear of chewing? Trying and imagine that you are super tired and feel the urge to yawn but have an overwhelming fear that if you do yo will be smashed round the side of the face with Thor’s electric hammer!! Then try and go to sleep feeling that tired but having that same pain wake you 3-4 times a night.
Well currently, that’s what life if feeling like for me. About this time last year, out of the blue I started getting a shock of pain in the right side of my face. As with most things I just ignored it thinking it would go away on its own. I continued to teach about 25hrs a week throughout, often just having to stop mid sentence to allow this sudden, short sharp burst of pain dissipate.
Eventually jen said enough was enough and on a particularly bad day went up to see a Dr who confirmed that it did seem to be trigeminal neuralgia, he Gave me gabapentin and off I went. Well ask jen about being on that and she’ll tell you I was in as much pain as before only I was a gibbering, stoned mess. An MRI was had, which showed nothing of any concern which as always is that double edged sword…you never want it to show something of concern as that means you probably have a tumour or something equally nasty but then you kinda wish it showed something so it could be just sorted out.
anyway come the beginning of December, as quickly as it came, it disappeared. I kinda forgot all about it for the most part. There was the occasional little flair but nothing more than a little reminder it had been there. Fast forward to last week and it’s back, the exhaustion, the fear, the pain, the CONSTANT anxiety and feeling that any second I’m guna be kinda rendered in pain again. To me this is the worst part, that constant fear/anxiety/worry/feeling that it’s there, that maybe the next cough, the next swallow, next chew, next kiss will set it off. When you read certain parts of the internet (don’t bother, as I nurse I would say don’t do it and as a patient I would say the same hahah) one of the names it seems to get given is “suicide disease”. Now I am not of the disposition where that kinda thing would ever be an option but I can understand how for others that might be. It’s not the pain so much as the constant exhaustion, constant fear and anxiety that it will go off, that it will stop you doing the things you love doing.
I do feel as if I have a small light at the end of the tunnel, which is the movement work I do. Through working with a chap called Gary ward, I have begun to understand how the structures of the body work through the gait cycle and how in the “flow motion model” (his genius contribution to the understanding of the human body) the shapes we hold in our body effect our ability to let our bodies ever experience effortless living. For me, I am stuck in a place which leaves the right side of my neck and shoulders stuck in a long position. I am unable to actually move my spine in a left flexion (side bend it). All of which means that those tissues don’t get to glide effortlessly. Without the ability of tissues to glide, things begin to rub, they cause some frictions (see some of the chats between a guy called John Sharkey and Jo Avison for talk on the importance of gliding tissues) they cause some inflammations in tissues, a lack of movement of bones brings a lack of movement of blood/lymph which means less clearing of waste and less fresh bloody to areas, all these things (inflammation/lymph etc) press onto and compress nerves which then results in them saying…OI SORT THIS SHIT THE FUCK OUT WILL YOU.
so here I am on this little personal movement journey to try and figure out which injuries/insults I have inflicted on my body has led to this shit and how I can give my body some time and space to let it move it’s self better. In the mean time if you come to class with me, please excuse any random stops mid sentance, any tired grumpiness (that goes from jen too, as I’m sure I will be exhausting to be around) but here’s to figuring this shit out and learning from it so maybe it can be of benefit to others.