MS News: November 2016
Find last month's MS-related articles here. Feel free to share!
Then & now
"Following that, I hit writer’s block faster than you can say ‘ABC’. That writer's block has reached the 'XYZ' stage, so I'm nearing a muse that sounds, tastes and smells like coffee. Starbucks. Where I am funnily always full of ideas. Away from notebooks and pens, I scrapped another item from my bucket list in September."
Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Symposium, Dublin
October has finally arrived, which means that the 4th International Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day is almost upon us. On October 7th the Light Up Teal campaign will see buildings across the world light up in a teal hue, with many buildings in Ireland joining the awareness campaign. So far, confirmation of 34 structures has been received, including the 3 Arena, Convention Center, Mansion House, Cork City Council, National Concert Hall, Christ Church Cathedral, Shannon Airport, NUI Maynooth and Galway Cathedral. Elsewhere, Niagara Falls, the Canada Peace Bridge, Perth Concert Hall, the Trafalgar Sq Fountains, Taipei Tower and The Sichuan Tower to name just a few, will don the same colour also.
TN triggers, symptoms & diagnosis
"Other disorders that cause facial pain should be ruled out before trigeminal neuralgia is diagnosed. Some disorders that cause facial pain include postherpetic neuralgia (nerve pain following an outbreak of shingles), cluster headaches, and temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ, which causes pain and dysfunction in the jaw joint and muscles that control jaw movement). Most people with TN eventually will undergo a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to rule out a tumour or multiple sclerosis as the cause of their pain."
Ignorance
Oh, people will stalk you on Facebook on their smartphone, but do not ask them to find unprejudiced, trustworthy websites to learn something about your condition on that very smartphone. Quite often, they "will do so when they have time," despite having their phone in their hands 50 times a day.
What a difference a needle makes
Needle anxiety. We all went through childhood being afraid of injections. But why would someone have needle anxiety when what you’re about to self-inject every day, in fact, slows down the progression of your chronic illness? Although my emotions regarding needles do not amount to belonephobia, I have gone through moments where I simply could not press a needle in my skin. Using an Autoinject only made it worse. Pain doesn’t scare me (anymore). In fact, I’m going through a pretty rough time right now because of trigeminal pain. Knowing, however, what the prerequisite was for having to inject myself on a daily basis, has, on occasion kept me from self-medicating.
That thing people call ‘summer’
"It's just another one of those very paradoxical facts of life: as a person with MS, you lack vitamin D. The only way to get good vitamin D into your body is to spend time in the sun. If heat sensitivity is part of your long list of MS symptoms, though, you can't sit outdoors in the sun because your other MS symptoms get worse. Result? You choose to stay out of the sun, and therefore continue to lack vitamin D."