Whilst having to deal with the onset of yet another attack, a massive realisation hit me today! I started to think back to the meeting at the hospital, and the questions that were asked and how we looked at the history of my condition. Suddenly! Key moments in my life have suddenly made so much sense when at the time i didn't really understand them.
When abroad, in Cyprus, i had a massive nerve attack and thought it was a tooth on the upper jaw on the left hand side and thinking it was rotten, rushed into the dentist, yet the dentist couldn't find anything wrong, but i was in extreme pain so they numbed me up and pulled the tooth anyway. Which i should add “hurt like hell”, and took me two days to recover.
Then again, several months later, a massive attack! Rushed into what they call a “Polyclinic” in Cyprus, it is like a private hospital for tourists, and they thought it was my sinuses, drugged me up to the eyeballs and sent me on my way after departing with several hundred pounds of my money.
Another when i was again rushed into the “Hospital” in Cyprus, told i had a damaged nerve and again was drugged up to the eyeballs and sent on my way. ( I can see a pattern starting to appear),
When i returned to the U.K. was told for years i was suffering migraines and it was all in my head the level of pain. Even to the extreme i was admitted the a mental hospital for my own safety. Then when a doctor seen one of the attack’s they realised it wasn’t just in my head.
Then to finally get a diagnosis, after 10 years of struggle and made to feel so low you couldn’t understand, and also to get a name for the condition was an amazing weight lifted from my shoulders, “CH”, “Chronic Head Aches”, why they call them that i don't know, as the only way i can describe the pain, is imagine all your tooth aches and head aches and bone breaks and pains all happen at the same time, but not just lasting for a moment, no it has to last at least 20 minuets, constant sharp pain increasing every second. Then maybe you’ll understand of just 10% of what it feels like.
It was a great relief to also stumble across the web sites for the support groups that try to help other people like me , that suffer CH, and help them understand it and how to try and control it. There aren't many people that actually know this condition exists i am now finding out, even my own doctor has had to learn and be prompted by the specialist on how to treat me, and fair play to her she is trying her best. My specialist is also sending her e-mails with all the info needed about the condition so they are all trying for me. I read the story's of other people who suffer chronic like me (on a day to day basis, not just once in a while) and hear the story's of their struggles to get their medication right to enable the attacks to go into remission (go to sleep so to speak) and then only to come back later down the line, even after years.
Then a wave suddenly hit me today, knowing this information and realising that i may have this condition for the rest of my life, struggling day to day to control the pain and attacks, juggling injections and oxygen and different drugs just to be able to sleep a full night pain free. Tears started to roll down my eyes of the realisation of how bad this condition is. Then i kicked my self! Think! There are other people out there worst off than me, struggling day to day with pain from cancer and other conditions, that most, wont actually live through, and there was me having a “feel sorry for” moment.
I have to admit to myself though, i don't know if i have got the strength in me anymore to deal with this condition on an every day basis but all i can do is try and hope, to god, that something will put this beast to sleep once and for all. Each day i have to try and grow stronger and try and beat this thing, surely to god there has to be something that will sort it out and i will find it. The specialist was nice with his manner, but seemed confident enough that they will eventually find the right thing to control it , its just going to take a bit of trail an error, but when you get this much pain, lets just say you can get a little impatient! (Injection time, its starting to get too much.)
