Just an update for the few who might know me personally – for others this will be a pointless excuse for a blog entry. I mentioned that I was ‘a little’ poorly on the South Causey break, what with the cold/Covid shenanigans and the toothache I’d had for weeks. Well on my return I went to the dentist who couldn’t really establish any core problem in the affected area (although a very small filling was completed).
The next step was to have a face to face with the G.P (I know) where I must admit I didn’t help with some very unspecific symptoms. Anyway, he came to the understandable conclusion that I probably had trigeminal neuralgia and prescribed Amitriptyline to dampen the pain (well, I couldn’t let Mrs. No name have all the glory since she used the same medication for post herpetic neuralgia, which she has had since the infamous ocular shingles debacle of 2016).
Anyway, by Saturday morning, I hadn’t slept for two nights and my symptoms had developed into what might be considered more typical trigeminal neuralgia symptoms (that is, in particular, bloody, excruciatingly painful). So much so that on Saturday, we went to A&E where we waited three and half hours to be seen by another GP, who, understandably given the scenario, broadly took us through the same questions. He still thinks I have trigeminal neuralgia, but has switched to the anticonvulsant carbamazepine, in the form of the brand Tegretol. As I write this (Wednesday morning) some of my symptoms go and then return but always I have the underlying, more typical, toothache.
I write this only to counter my sometimes negative view of primary care and state that with this type of case, I would argue (pompously) that both GPs diagnosed correctly on the basis of contradictory information presented by the patient at the time of the visit and the fact that I had seen the dentist before visiting them. I know Tegretol takes time to work and I need to be patient but I predict nonetheless that my tooth will need to come out – which of course is a whole new kettle of fish.
Follow this torrid and deeply disturbing affliction in the comments below in due course!