fox | bits and pieces

Today I have a bit of a headache and am kind of wickedly vertiginous and I cannot tell you how glad I am for both of these. Not, for a change, because it confirms that this whole thing is not just in my head; instead, because for the first time in days all other kinds of pain and discomfort are not utterly overshone by the indiscriminate firing of my inferior alveolar nerve (right side), which has been making me variously unhappy and then utterly miserable since last week but especially the night before last and a lot of yesterday.

Holy shit, does that hurt. In the small hours of Wednesday morning I won some points with my sister-in-law and College Roommate K for making a reference on Facebook to one of Bertie Wooster's invocations of his Scripture Knowledge prize - remember?
Indeed, just before Jeeves came in, I had been dreaming that some bounder was driving spikes through my head – not just ordinary spikes, as used by Jael the wife of Heber, but red-hot ones.
Mine was a red-hot spike being driven straight into the canal of my right ear, rather than through the temples, but the idea was the same. Only there was no dreaming it, either, because that kind of pain stopped me falling asleep pretty effectively. (Or woke me right the hell up, if I happened to have dozed off.) Assorted manipulations of my right arm and my neck occasionally brought a few minutes' relief but mainly, as I was finally able to articulate (when I realized the right side of my tongue was tingling as well, though I haven't bitten it), it's been like Novocaine wearing off over here, for days. I suppose the effectiveness of that as a description depends on how badly you hurt when you're coming off Novocaine, but I've never dealt well with the stuff, and the many hours of the nerve sending test signals ("Can you feel this now? How about now? This? Now? ping, ping, ping ...") has always been what my mother would call a gracious plenty. So after a couple of days of that, as you can imagine, I was heartily wishing I could send a memo back:
To: inferior alveolar nerve (dexter)
From: Fox
Re: your messages

Thank you. We're on it. No further bulletins are required.
One begins to understand and sympathize with people who are driven mad by pain - if I'm so desperate at three in the morning on about day eight that I genuinely have to remind myself that shoving something into my ear will create more problems than it solves (and will probably have solved nothing), then less stubborn people in greater pain for longer periods of time can absolutely be excused forgetting that e.g. shooting off their leg isn't really going to make their knee stop hurting. (The dentist's office more than once back in the root canal days commented that I seem to have a lower-than-average pain threshold. It took me a while not to feel defensive about this, which isn't precisely fair because they didn't mean it critically. But: maybe it's true. Doesn't mean I'm any sort of wimp who is defeated by less pain than other people. What it means is, it takes less of a stimulus to make me feel the same kind of pain that other people don't feel until they've been hit with more of a stimulus. Bottom line: it still hurts, and quite a lot.)

A couple of sessions at the physical therapist (where I was sent for my neck and shoulder and the headache-and-dizziness festival I've been experiencing all summer, but where they have been kind enough to worry about my TMJ as well even though it's not in their remit) and a few days of the exercises they've given me, in which often stretching my shoulder this way or that has abruptly relieved the firing nerve - seriously, it's like flipping a switch - has me pretty well convinced that something in my shoulder is pinching something in my neck that ought not to be pinched, which is making my jaw and cheekbone hurt like blazes. I'm training myself not to rest my chin on my hand, ever. I'm trying pretty hard not to let my right arm tighten up in ways that are going to hurt me later on.

Anyone with particular advice about controlling pain in facial nerves is welcome to speak up in the comments. Things that have worked, but nothing 100%, include (in no particular order):
- stretching the upper trapezius (I put my right hand behind my back and tilt my head to the left)
- backward shoulder rolls
- pulling my shoulderblades together behind me
- hanging from the doorframe by the fingertips of my right hand (sort of; this is the nearest I can get to mimicking the action of the pulleys they have at the PT, until my own pulleys arrive from Amazon)
- pressing on a knot in the muscle just inside my right shoulderblade with my left hand (when I can reach it)
- pressing on the upper trapezius
- squeezing the acupressure point at the base of my right thumb
- sucking hard on my lower right back teeth
- pressing at various spots on or near the right side of my jaw: behind my ear (either on the skull, on the fleshy spot, or on the point of the jaw), in front of my ear, at the muscular spot where the mandible and maxilla come together, or sort of right up under the cheekbone)
- pawing smoothly at the right side of my face with both hands as though I could somehow calm the nerve by petting it
- pressing on an acupressure point on my right upper arm (now the site of a particularly ugly series of bruises)
- getting up and walking around (not conducive to sleep)
Things that have never worked so I've given up trying:
- pain relievers
- drinking
- combining pain relievers and drink
A moment of utter femme, such as I am probably the only one to be surprised at coming from myself: girls, listen, I have finally found the lipstick shade I've been after for yonks. I have a lot of lovely lip colors, but what I really wanted for everyday purposes was something that would just sort of punch up my regular skin tone. I do like a dramatic lip, but I've never felt I could carry it off under normal circumstances (which is another way, I suppose, of saying I've never got used to it), but most of the nude or mild lip colors I was finding were too nude, like, I really can't do that thing where the lipstick tries to make your lips match your face, or I'll totally vanish (seems this may be a function of having very pale skin and dark hair; I think that really-nude-lip look works better on women whose skin and hair are closer together on the spectrum, right, which among white women basically means your sort of golden blondes) - or else they looked right in the tube and even on the back of my hand but were much too pink on my lips. But I fell for a TV commercial where the folks at Maybelline had a whole new line of nude lipsticks, and I checked them out in the Target one day last week, and wouldn't you know, I think their "warm me up" shade suits me perfectly. So let's hear it (also) for advertising! \o/
I really feel like there was a third thing, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Maybe it had something to do with Ginger Tenor? Anh. If I remember I'll post again.

I have a stretch that helps with my stiff neck & shoulder issues, related to the pulling your shoulder blades together stretch -- first, reach straight up as high as you can, elbows straight, & hold for just a moment, then bring your arms down, bending at the elbows, as if aiming to put your elbows in your back pockets, and holding that for a moment. Repeat 2 or 3 times.

I hope that make sense, and more than that, I hope you find more stuff that works for you! Pain sucks.

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