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Trigeminal Neuralogia? Hemicentrium something or other. Or as the school called it "Fakeritis.'

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This rings painfully true to my own experience. I have on three occasions age 17, age 41 and now age 48 gone through a two year loop to specialists trying to identify, categorise and medicate pain in the left side of my head/face ... body.

These things are always complex, but having finally got answers that make sense the pain is a touch easier to deal with.

At one stage it was seriously suggested that a new syndrome would be named after me!

Actuall it is complex, though it can be reduced to four interactions:

1) Asthmatic. I have to take inhaler steriods into my lungs and aerosol steriods into my nose twice a day. I am happiest on oral steriods but this isn't permitted long term sad i.e. too often the above doesn't function ... so a reaction results, painful swellling of the soft membranes of my sinuses = pain.

2) Allergy to housemite feaces. I.e. yes I should sleep in a tent in the garden and sleeping in or next to the bath also makes sense. I was born to sleep on wooden floorboards, ideal several centuries ago! And this is a major, major allergy ... when tested my skin comes up in a nasty rash/burn sting. I ought to be at sea, or live by the sea ... probably on a remote island such as St.Kilda. Or up a mountain. I have twice worked a season at 2000m + in the Alps and never had a problem, but then again, if I could ski for an hour or two every day I'd never complain about anything.

3) Food intollerance. Some foods, though not allergic to anything, cause mischief, triggering pain that can vary on a scale of 1 (irritating) to a migraine, bed, close the curtains. I tend to keep away from chocolate and mushrooms!

4) At the age of 6 or 7 I jumped out of a moving bus and hit the bus stop! This didn't break my nose but crushed some bones near the base of my nose which means, as my GP put it, 'You're like a Ferrari driving on an exhaust from a 2CV!'. As a former athlete (swimming) my lungs were forcing air through a blocked pipe ...

Surgery is the next step, though, unless there is an infection involved, I've learnt to tolerate the thing. But I absoultely must take the medication and ensure that all the bottles/inhalers are full. If I run out and panic my local GP and pharmacist have yet to fail to come up with the drugs they know I need within a few hours.

If this is totally irrelevant to your case my apologies, but I go through what I variously describe as:

  • a rusty fork stuck in my face
  • hit by a brick
  • bottled
  • hit in the face by a golf ball
  • hit in the face by a book
  • nettle stings around the skull
  • a wasp in my nose
  • a bruised lung

Yep, I've gone on ... as much a reminder to me of what I need to keep on top off. I ran out of everything a few days ago and felt miseable ... I

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