When I get a flare up, my ear and surrounding area cannot be touched. Or breathed on. Even driving and acceleration, or turning hurts it. I can't turn my head or tilt it.
The tragus itself feels all tender as does the area in front of and in back of the ear. I can see little capillaries in the ear, where I can't in my other normal ear.
Is this normal? The crappy part is: I don't know what triggers it. As far as I can tell - nothing! it just comes on by itself and lasts for long tortuous hours and disappears just as quickly. Opoids don't help. Muscle relaxants don't help. OTC meds don't help.
I still haven't been officially diagnosed with TN, although my dentist says that's what it is and even admits that it may have been triggered by HIM when he shot my gums up before giving me a filling in August. :/ The dentist gave me a referral to some specialist an hour+ drive away. I don't know if I want to do that or what it'd do...I don't want to even consider surgery.
My ENT is convinced now, too, considering how the small polyps and low-grade sinus infection she treated me for didn't make the pain stop. Now she wants to do a CAT scan of my neck/head and then she said she'd get me referral to a neuro.
But shouldn't I get an MRI done to see if it's truly TN?
What about Chiropractic? or Acupuncture? or TENS? or ANYTHING???