Trigeminal Neuralgia: The Motherf***er They Call the Suicide Disease ⚡️🔪
Let me break it down for you. Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) isn’t a “maybe” kind of pain. It’s not something you question. If you have it, you know. There’s no mistaking it for TMJ, a toothache, or a sinus headache. Nope. This is a motherf***er all on its own.
For me, it feels like someone is stabbing an ice pick straight into the side of my face—🔪❄️—out of nowhere. No warning. One second I’m fine, the next I’m doubled over, clutching my head, praying it passes. And sometimes? It doesn’t just pass. Sometimes it comes back again and again. Multiple times an hour. Multiple times a day. Sometimes you’ll get a break, sometimes you won’t.
This shit will literally drop you to your knees. No exaggeration.
The “Suicide Disease”
They don’t call it that for fun. TN is brutal. It’s not just the stabbing pain—it’s the unpredictability, the exhaustion, the way it hijacks your life. You can’t plan for it. You can’t tough it out. You just brace yourself and ride the lightning ⚡.
Migraines, Because Why Not?
Like TN wasn’t enough of a sick joke, it often likes to bring migraines along for the ride. No one knows why, but trust me—waking up with a banger of a headache every single morning for 10 days straight is not the party I signed up for.
Who Gets It?
Mostly women, usually in their 50s. Mine kicked off at 20. 🎉 Lucky me, right? I’ve been battling this beast for 30+ years, and at 55 I can literally feel my brain pulsing sometimes. And those pulses? They can trigger what’s called a “tic attack”—a cascade of back-to-back face stabs that feel like torture on loop.
What You Can Do About It
There are treatments, but let me be blunt: none of them are perfect.
Meds: Anticonvulsants like carbamazepine or oxcarbazepine, sometimes muscle relaxers. They can dull the pain—but they’ll mess with your body in other ways.
Procedures: Nerve blocks, Gamma Knife (radiosurgery), rhizotomy (literally damaging the nerve to shut it up).
Surgery: Microvascular decompression (MVD). I did mine back in the early 2000s at Harborview. They went in and moved the blood vessel pressing on the nerve. It worked for a while… but TN doesn’t always stay gone.
The Ugly Truth
This doesn’t get easier with age. If anything, it gets worse. And unless you’ve felt it, you don’t get it. This isn’t TMJ. This isn’t a bad headache. This is a pain so intense, it’s been described in medical literature as “one of the most painful afflictions known to mankind” (Mayo Clinic).
And here’s another truth: people who deal with this kind of shit tend to have zero tolerance for other people’s bullshit.Why? Maybe it’s because we’ve already been dealt a shit deck of cards, and we sure as hell don’t need your shit stacked on top of it.
My Survival Flex 💪
Thirty-plus years. That’s how long I’ve been dragging this beast around with me. It’s knocked me flat, stolen days, ripped nights apart, and made me question my own sanity. But guess what? I’m still here. Still standing. Still louder than the pain.
TN may be a motherf***er, but I’m a bigger one. 🖕🔥
To Anyone Else Fighting This
If you’re reading this because you’ve got it too—hear me loud and clear: you are not alone. I know how isolating this pain feels. I know how it steals your words, your plans, your energy. But there are others of us out here gritting our teeth and getting back up after every strike.
So yeah, TN can drop us to our knees… but we don’t stay down. Neither should you. 🤜🤛
