Trigeminal Neuralgia

Hello again @ajrTN - I'm glad you were able to join the weekly chat on Saturday - even though it started at midnight your time!

By joining the forum and taking advantage of our many resources, you are on the right path! I hope that you will soon look at the "TN" in your username and come up with new words to apply to those letters!

We see a lot of people here who report recovery from all kinds of symptoms that have been labeled "neuralgia" which of course just means "nerve pain". The most common type here is pudendal (pelvic) but you can use our search function on Trigeminal, limited to the Success Stories subforum.

I find two things to be significant about neuralgia. The first is how often the medical descriptions say that the cause is unknown. And when the cause is unknown, that's an excellent reason to believe that your brain is causing pain in those nerves for reasons that have nothing to do with injury or illness. The second thing is that inflammation is often mentioned in conjunction with neuralgia, and what the medical and scientific communities are seeing and reporting more and more often is this: inflammation is supposed to be part of the body's normal immune response to an actual injury or illness, but it is being seen and accepted that long-term stress produces a constant level of inflammation which eventually leads to chronic pain, symptoms, and even to actual illness and injury. AND, these high levels of chronic inflammation are being seen more often in our stressful world.

My own diagnosis of sudden-onset RA, very late in life, was DIRECTLY connected to a period of intense stress, combined with (and related to) the trauma of the pandemic and shutdown in 2020. There was and still is absolutely no other explanation for how I managed to suddenly develop RA at age 69. And RA, along with all of the autoimmune conditions, is directly related to inflammation.

We have two free programs to learn about how the brain creates the chronic conditions we call TMS. I usually suggest starting with the SEP, the Structured Educational Program, which is on the main tmswiki.org.

I've got a list of books and podcasts which I've found helpful in my own journey. I highly recommend Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes, and the podcast program and resources of Nicole Sachs, LCSW.