4S connection?

[Guest guest]

Hi Fellow Sufferers:

Just bear with a bit of my personal history before I share what happened

last night.

I'm 50 and have been dealing with 4S symptoms since I was about 4 or 5

years old. I think I've posted to the group before that I actually

feel pain in my head/ears when I'm being exposed to the offending sound

(for me, it's gum chewing/snapping/popping).

Additionally, since my 20's, I have had intermittent bouts of facial

nerve pain, shooting pains that wrap around my head & face, almost

like an electric shock. It happens on just one side of my face and

the bouts can last from a week to a couple of weeks. The pain is

debilitating and there becomes almost a " fear " of doing

anything that could trigger the shooting electric shock. And, YES,

the sound of gum snapping/popping triggers these deep electrical shock

sensations, but I had never thought that perhaps they were related.

No pain medicine that I've taken has ever really made a difference, and I

always thought it was something to do with TMJ. Putting on a latex

glove, I've done deep (super deep) massage from both the inside &

outside of my mouth, near the jaw joint, at the same time and it seems to

provide momentary relief. But mostly, it just runs its

course. After a couple days of this the eyelid on the affected side

seems to sag and it feels like I've been punched in the face with a

boxing glove.

A couple days ago, I woke up with severe facial nerve pain on the left

side of my face. Burning, stinging, prickly, raw pain. If I

couldn't touch or see my face, I would have thought that a layer of my

skin had been peeled off. It was so bad that I decided to go to the

doctor and based on my description of the symptoms, he thought it was

possibly " trigeminal neuraligia " (TN). He sent me over

for a cat scan & blood tests and I will see him again this afternoon

for results & follow-up. But like any good internet junkie, I

looked up TN this morning and found the National Institute of Health page

about it

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/trigeminal_neuralgia/detail_trigeminal_neuralgia.htm#91933236

(among other sites) -- and it perfectly describes my experience (it's

always nice to see your symptoms aren't yours alone). But take a

look at this little blurb I cut-and-pasted from that site about research

being done on TN --

What research is being done?

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS),

a part of the National Institutes of Health, is the federal government’s

leading supporter of biomedical research on disorders of the brain and

nervous system. One NINDS-funded study is examining the

neurophysiological characteristics of TN to see if the disorder is

associated with abnormal sensory input from the peripheral nervous

system.

" Associated with abnormal sensory input from the peripheral nervous

system " ??? Now I'm wondering if 4S & TN are related in

some way. Is there anyone else in the group who has experienced the

symptoms I've described for TN?

Kathy in L.A.