The bad news: The last 2 weeks have been a horror. Besides TN I have chronic migraines. They have both been having a war in my face and ear. After 7 days the vomiting started. Non-stop. I try to avoid the ER as much as possible because I know half the time it ends up being pointless and frustrating. But after another 7 days of pain and vomiting I gave up and went this past Monday. It was awful as usual. Waited for the Dr for 4 hours. An hour later the nurses started coming in trying to start an IV but because my body hates me, they couldn't find anything. They gave up after 7 tries even though I begged them to keep trying because I knew I needed fluids bad. They tried 3 different nausea meds IM and Dilaudid to no avail. 14 hours after getting there I was discharged still vomiting and now hysterically crying from the pain and frustration of it all.
The good news: I saw a neurosurgeon yesterday to discuss doing a MVD. I really liked him! He was so kind and listened and asked questions and was the first doctor I've seen that understands TN (as much as it can be understood I guess). It's funny because he was asking me about all the different treatments and meds I've tried throughout the years. I mentioned that I had recently had a 7-day in hospital treatment with some medicine that is a hallucinogen to see if it would help the pain (I can't for the life of me remember the name of the medication). He looks at me and says: "Oh yes....I find it so... so barbaric!" Meanwhile I'm like: "You're going to poke a hole in my skull, but ok." LOL Anyway, he explained things really well and explained to me that, based on my symptoms, I don't have just the face TN but some other thing that has to do with the trigeminal nerve that causes a lot of pain in the ear and back of throat. (Again, my brain is not working right and I can't remember the exact name.)
Sooo...MVD in Nov!!! Yay! I can't wait. Because of the ear thing, he's going to do the regular MVD and then go to some nerve near my ear and check it out. I can't wait. Now I have to make it w/o anymore ER visits. (Still in pain and vomiting. Ugh!)