for my friends on facebook, a update….
I just signed on to facebook. I also linked my blog here to my facebook page. Thought I better explain about the Trigeminal Neuralgia and the surgery I had to correct the problem so friends reading this for the first time would understand what I was talking about.
The Trigeminal Nerve is also known as the Fifth Cranial nerve. It is the largest of the Cranial nerves. It goes from the middle of your scalp, straight down to the tip of your chin. It is the nerve the dentist numbs before he/she goes to drill on your teeth.
In the winter of 2000 I felt like I had been hit in the left side of my face with 10 tasers. The doctor diagnosed me with Trigeminal Neuralgia (Tn). As I was already on one of the common medications to treat the disorder, the doctor upped the dose and for 3 months I suffered through the worst pain I had ever known in my life. This is saying a lot when you consider I had given birth to both my boys with no painkillers.I quit my job as all the talking and up and down movement of my jaw would trigger the pain. With time the pain went away.
I did well for the following 5 years. To my horror, though my Tn relapsed June 1,2005 and for the following 3 1/2 years did not let up. I researched different treatment options. As medications were no longer working I came to believe a Neurosurgery procedure called Micro Vascular Decompression Surgery would be the best next step. This would entail the Neurosurgeon going in behind my left ear and drilling a hole the size of a quarter into my skull. It was believed that either a vein or artery was hitting the nerve at the point where the nerve exited the brain stem, causing it to misfire.
I had the surgery January 14 of this year. Sure enough, what the neurosurgeons thought was happening was indeed happening. The main artery to the brain has looped it’s self around the nerve. The surgeons used medical Teflon to cushion the artery off the nerve. All good and dandy EXCEPT due to a rare bone deformity in my skull the surgeons had to drill deeper than normal and this resulted in a Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF) leak that proceeded to leak out my left nostril for ten days. Yes, you read that right.
All total I spent 16 days in the hospital. If the leak had not happened I would have only spent 3 days in the hospital. I ended up in ICU with a lumbar drain in my back for 5 days. The ideal was if the CSF pressure was lowered it would give scar tissue a chance to start to form around the dura and a chance for it to start healing, thus stopping the CSF leak. It worked ,but it meant five days, with me flat on my back, not being able to lift my head off the pillow for 23 1/2 hours a day. As active as I am I found this to be the hardest thing to deal with. Even more so than the actual surgery it’s self. Plus, I do not do well in really noisy environments and the ICU was extremely noisy with all the monitoring alarms that would go off constantly.
I am now 9 weeks post-op. To no longer have to deal with the horrible pain of the TN has made the surgery and all the post-op issues worth it. What makes it even more exciting is the surgeons say I will feel even better with time.
Life is good and getting even better,
Sarah
