As many members are aware, I keep a weather eye peeled for recent research on chronic face pain. The following article from Pain-Topics.org tends to confirm results I've seen in other sources, but offers further support for training in coping techniques as a useful adjunct to medication management.
Interesting read. Thank you for finding it and sharing with us!
I've often noticed that stress makes my pain worse...and worrying about making my pain worse stresses me. So yeah, I think these people are on to something!
Although, as mentioned...the sample size did seem quite small. I wonder if they have plans to repeat the study with a larger sample size?
Anyway...thank you!
~Mistee
Most articles at Pain-Topics.org make provision for comments. I encourage you to surface the question with the site management in such a comment.
Regards, Red
Thanks Red. this is partially of what my neurologist told me today. Unfortunately he bordered on telling me if I became Buddhist my TN would all be disappear! I will look into some newer pain management techniques, but he is against looking at changing my meds or combining with new ones at all unfortunately. He also would not listen to me at all when I mentioned I had learned a few things from you all, saying that internet persons aren't real and play drs. and lot's of misinformation is shared, etc. You all are so real to me it's unbelievable!! Thanks RED! Your being "real" is so important to me and many others. blessings~~
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Shepherdgirl.
Although I think your neurologist overdid his advocacy, there is medical evidence to support the proposition that meditation and active visualization can be useful in reducing vulnerability to breakthrough pain.
Any doctor who won't listen to their patients deserves to be fired. I'd suggest that it may be time for you to interview a few other neurologists, and to make clear to those who you see that your reason for doing so is that your present physician is unwilling to hear you or to participate with you as a member of your treatment management team -- which you expect to head up.
Keep on truckin', Hon
Regards, Red
Yeah that is my conclusion after a nights sleep and talking with my husband about the whole interaction. The dr. also told me, "You might as well not be here, since life is so difficult and medication is what is making it bearable!" this is a dr. that has been really good up until now. There is a language issue, English isn't his first language, Chinese is. English is my language. So the search begins, I hate this! Let the search begin! I will be part of the solution not the problem! Thanks Red~~
i too find stress
exacerbates my TN ... also, i spoke to my neuro about this group and his comment was that people on here are people who have found no relief and those that have, have left the group
Rebecca, there is a degree of truth in your neuro's observation. People who get a good result very frequently drift away from sites like this one. However, in the first few months of their visits here, it is also frequently the case that members discover from other participants that some of the things they've been told by doctors with inadequate training are inaccurate or simply wrong-headed. Or they discover alternatives in treatment that their doctors did not tell them about -- and the alternatives get them a better result. Since October 2009, over 3700 people have joined here. Of those, about 750 have logged in since the January 1st 2013. And that isn't a bad result. It suggests that as many as 3000 people have found a better outcome than they had before.
Go in Peace and Power
Red Lawhern, Ph.D.
Resident Research Analyst, LwTN
I do find too that when a dr doesn't use the internet to his advantage, like any other tool that is available to us in life, it can cause the view to be clouded. I have watched drs. of my generation be more resistant to the internet, thus when talking to them about something from the internet, ie current research, treatments, etc. they seem to think it is invalid that lowly me couldn't possibly learn something they hadn't about my condition. The opposite is also tru in that those who have embraced the internet seem to have been more open and receptive to suggestions. I too was resistant to looking up recipes online, until my daughter pushed me a bit and wow a whole new world opened up!! I still rely on many of my old favorite cookbooks, but in a pinch or just looking for a new idea the internet works for me!! blessings~~