Lauriep,
My original surgery was an unusual extraction of all 4 of my impacted wisdom teeth. All 4 were not only fully covered by my other molars, but actually had the roots of my other molars growing through them in places. Just a big mess in there. The solution was to cut “little window holes” in the side of my jaw over all 4 teeth, then liquify the wisdom teeth with a chemical, in my jaw, and then scoop the jello like tooth with a tiny spoon like tool. That is how the oral sergon described it too me. I was warned that there was a rare side effect of various types of facial nerve damage. It was a 6 hour surgery with full Anithesia. They had trouble keeping me out, as I process the drugs faster than average. So there was some concern that I had moved during delicate moments. After the extreme swelling and regular pain went down I had numbness and tingles on both sides of my mouth down to my chin. But as a careless 19 year old that was acceptable and easy to ignore, I felt that I had dodged any bad outcomes. For somewhat unknown reasons the left side erupted in crushing aching pain 4.5 years later in 2014. I still have the numb tingly spots on both sides. My theory is the left side was aggravated by a cavity I discovered in the upper left back molar, one of the molars that had a wisdom tooth removed from around it’s roots. I learned of the deep cavity 4 months after the pain began. I think the left tooth nerves were already injured and the cavity set off the pain feedback loop in the wider nerve branch. I had the tooth fixed, though the pain has only gotten worse. My pain actually began in my front two bottom left teeth and traveled up my lower jaw and spread across my upper teeth and cheek in the first 3 days. So really only God knows what actually happened.
I was on Oxcarbazipine and Nortriptyline for several years, because they were the most effective meds for me, but even the lowest doses of the Oxcarbazipine made me dizzy and I was still in pretty severe regular pain, and being off Ballance and often nauseated got unbearable after a few years so for the last year and a half I have been on just 50mg of Nortriptyline. If I go much higher than that it makes me sleep 18 hours a day and fall asleep doing dishes or eating, like a narcoleptic, so I keep 60% of the pain in order to stay awake through the day at the lower dose. I usually wake up with 3-4 on the pain scale, some good days I sleep at a 6-7, some bad days by 1-2 PM I just have to give up on everything, lay down and ride out the full 10 pain.
I have never had a non drug/treatment induced pain break. Not a single day in 6 years. My pain is severe and intense. Before I diagnosis (which took 5 months to find) I could not sleep, at all, without heavy pain killers, and I ate very little. It nearly killed me. Literally. Not the pain it’s self but the lack of sleep and food. I could only sleep while I had 800mg ibuprofen AND hydrocodone in my system. Even then I still hurt. I would take the huge dose of pills, sleep for 2-5 hours, and then wake to my own full throated screaming. Once I woke up that was the end of sleep for the night. I rationed my opioids to one a night. And once I ran out I spent 2 nights not sleeping at all, I was seeing full on halusinations from sleep deprivation, and my whole body aches, I then gave up and went to the ER and got more meds. That was how I lived. I CANNOT survive without some kind of pain relief, so I have never considered getting off meds just to see what happens, because even one missed dose usually results in a painsomnia sleepless night.
I did do nerve blocks over the summer. I had 28 amazing days that were really low pain or pain free, but that was not enough time to alter meds and my doctor worried about casing more damage if he did them more often than 3-4 months apart. They cost $1000 after insurance, so, all in all we decided that 28 days relief every 3rd month was not worth the risk of more damage, or the cost. I have never been pain free from pill form medications even at top doses. I talked to 2 doctors about botox, but due to my young age and my fast metabolization of the nerve block meds, and the largeness of my pain area it was not recommended as a good option.
My understanding is Nortriptyline, amitriptyline, cymbalta, and several of the anticonvulsants can cause your body trouble with regulation of heart rate. Because it stifles the entire nervous system it effects autonomic function like blood pressure and heart rate and even breathing in sever cases. For me I have not had a resting heart rate below 90 bpm for over a year. My average heart rate including sleeping is around 99-110 bpm. Right now, sitting on the couch with my feet up and typing this it is 107. When I exercise it can shoot up to 200 and I get chest aches and light headed. My blood pressure used to be borderline too low and now it is slightly high and I get episodes where my whole body feels like my blood is pounding and I get dizzy. There may be more involved than just the meds in my case, as I mentioned, I have a family history of odd heart things. But I fully believe the meds are contributing because when I lowered the dose to 40mg a day for a few months just to see, my resting heart rate average dropped by 5 bmp and went back up when I added the 10mg back in. I wear a heart rate monitor almost all the time because I wanted as much data as possible.
I hope so caught all your questions. Hope things go as well as possible for you, and thanks for the well wishes!
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btw I’m 64, my injury was a root canal, the RX I’m on is Carbamazepine and it works, so far no damage to any organs.