Tooth Problems Persist, Hans Blix

My tooth problems persist, though differently. On Saturday my tooth became loose and wobbled for a day before, today, settling in a new position, where it aches slightly. I now hypothesize that the nerve pain I experienced last week was due to movements of the tooth, that its lower tip is close to that trigeminal nerve. I know that such things can occur because when my wisdom teeth were removed, one touched this nerve (or the one on the other side of my face) and numbed my face for 8 months.

I had no pain last night apart from slightly in my throat above my Adam's apple, and a slight awareness of the tooth. I awoke asweat with a slightly raised temperature. It may be healing in a new place, it may be getting worse, who can say. I can but hope that something can be done. I'm seeing my dentist tomorrow. I've had no extreme sensitivity or any Trigeminal Neuralgia agonies since Thursday, the only day on which these occurred.

While trying to forget all of this annoyance, a generally good day today. Started by trying to get an phone-only app to run on PC with an emulator, but it was tricky to set up, so I gave up. I helped fix the carpet downstairs and ordered a cover for the greenhouse for my mother.

Then, worked on the music for a new song called 'Remembering Hans Blix', for the nuclear album, now to be called War And Nuclear Love (note that I capitalise all first letters of album titles). Music for 'Post-Apocalyptic Playground' is just about done too. Much done today.

Here are the words to Blix:

Remembering Hans Blix

Hands up if you remember Hans Blix
Wonder if he is still around in twenty twenty six
We really need to find him and his magic box of tricks
We've many invisible weapon problems he can fix

We need Hans
We need Hans
We need Hans
We need Hans

War And Nuclear Love

Weary today, but a first day of work on music, on being originally creative, in a while. Finalised the production of 'War and Nuclear Love'. The song is part of this war-themed album, themed because it's being developed to complement the Radioactive theme. The music is similar to that, very analogue-based electro-pop, in the mould of Yazoo or Erasure. Worked on a second song called Post-Apocalyptic Playground too. Here are the WANL words so far:

War and Nuclear Love

Here in my bunker
Surrounded by toys
Dreaming of the people I could conquer

Long blonde robots
Keep telling me I'm great
I'm feeling in the mood to procreate

I take my fuse
And masturbate as I muse on

War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear
War and nuclear
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love

There's something in my shattered past
That gives me a need to dominate
And if I can't attract a mate
I'll seek a rubber weakling and inflate

Look at the buttons
Awaiting a push
There's something of a Christmas morning here

Handsome generals
Encourage me to play
And I've nothing better to do today

I pray to God, grip my fuse
And he tells me that he approves of

War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear
War and nuclear
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love
War and nuclear love

Phantoms

A night of strange flowing face pains growing to a horrible peak, then falling away over the course of 8 hours. Now, this has been going on for some days, since Tuesday, and this morning I had a slight temperature of 37.7 degrees too. Yet, I suddenly became logical and sceptical, my personality instantly flipped. Pains only at night are more likely to be psychological, as diseases happen day and night; though of course we are distracted in the day so at night all bodily senses are amplified at night.

I began to see everything in new terms. I'd not heard of Trigeminal Neuralgia until the doctor mentioned it, but much later realised that I had, having read a BBC News article about it only about a week earlier, not consciously noting the name. What if I'd unconsciously created the disease and it's symptoms for one day, and what if the pain had vanished because of the idea of taking pain medication? And the dangerous side effects appeared exactly because I was warned that they might?

The intense agony triggered by even a drop of warm liquid on Thursday was real, that's for certain, yet, the day before my mouth had been numbed by dental anaesthetic, so perhaps they became hyper-sensitive as a counter reaction. Since reading about TN, I've avoided eating with that side of my face or teeth, but perhaps I don't need to. Perhaps this disease was only there on Thursday?

My throat hurts, is this tension caused by gulping strangely, or something else? Have I raised my temperature to 37.7 by the power of will?

For the moment, art should be my focus. The external.

More Trigeminal Neuralgia, NHS Matters, and War ANL

Pain free yesterday due to the very effective Carbamazepine, but woke last night with a sweat and a raised, though not technically feverish, temperature, ranging from 36.2 to 37.3 degrees and feeling not-quite-well. Today, the glands in my throat on both sides are a little swollen and sensitive, swallowing notably a little painful.

Today I read that Trigeminal Neuralgia is more commonly missed than diagnosed by dentists; often the first point of call for sufferers. Perhaps dental surgeries need informational posters or leaflets about this.

In the late morning, I went to Crewe Market Hall with Deb where she was due to read some of her poems for tomorrow's International Women's Day. After that, I worked on the 'War and Nuclear Love' song for some more time. It's a very complex production, and for me will remind me of Duran Duran's 'Ordinary World'. Not necessarily because the song it musically related, but I watched a Rick Beato YouTube video about it and marvelled at the strange chords, which Duran Duran excel at.

Trigeminal Neuralgia

Well, I changed my mind and decided to see a doctor. I've been diagnosed with suspected Trigeminal Neuralgia, and after taking a look at the symptoms this matches how I feel. My teeth are so sensitive that even one drop of warm tea will explode with agony across my face. Rather than the short attacks common to many sufferers, my pain seems to last for longer periods, even hours. It ebbs and flows like a ghost, liquid pain, none to mild to severe and away.

The diagnosis is devastating, I'm coming to terms with it, but it gives me some useful clues. I don't need to worry about muscle relaxation, or tooth problems, or spasms from vocal muscles or saliva glands. The condition can vary per person and may go away, the excellent doctor said it would pass. It can even vanish completely, although on average it seems it gets worse over time. In retrospect, this is the pain (though far milder) I felt in November and December when first experiencing what I thought were tooth problems. It reappeared again last month, but only since Tuesday evening was the pain overwhelming.

I have been prescribed some pain relief medication. I have a few treatment ideas myself. For years I've been taking daily choline, 100mg. I've also recently started to take some lithium orotate after a positive study concerning memory improvement and the attenuation of neurological deterioration. Both supplements are useful as they assist myelin, this small dose of choline may have delayed the disease. More choline and more lithium is one treatment which may help with myelin healing (I expect this takes many months, nerves heal very slowly), if this works at all. These supplements are, at least, relatively harmless - this should always be the first question with an experimental supplement. If my teeth are the only point of sensitivity, perhaps a shield over them will stop it - does such a thing exist? I can drink with straws, now knowing that trying to 'train' my nerves to accept normal eating is probably futile - although it seems that after the initial agony, it does become possible to eat, so perhaps there are some elements of training.

I expect this will obsess me for a few days but now, at this moment, there is no pain and I've felt only dull pain since 2pm, so perhaps the medication is working.

Onwards.

War and Nuclear Love, and the Agony

Did some work on a song yesterday called 'War and Nuclear Love'. It's amazing that in a song almost any chord will do, so I'm trying to push out more boats here and let loose more.

The day, alas, was been dominated by my agonising jaw pain, spasms of some sort. Almost any food, even drinks slightly warm, slightly cold, that touch the senstive teeth at the far right side of my mouth starts a cascade of agony like a flow of some painful liquid. The pain can also grow from nothing without cause, jangling my front teeth, then running along right gums up and down, extending to ear, down to my Adam's apple; ebbing and flowing in intensity. Last night, the pain swelled and grew from about 8pm to 10pm and was the most agonising pain I've ever experienced. I capitulated and took some ibuprofen, which attenuated it completely for sleeping (such relief, despite the shivering terror of it returning).

I'm unsure of the cause. This started on Tuesday night. I'd been reading audiobooks for many hours for about two weeks, so perhaps there are some effects there (unusually high levels of vocal muscle use, salivation changes). I doubt this. Perhaps more likely is the long running teeth problems, which led me to avoid using the right side of my mouth. Now those teeth are largely fine, and have been ground a little to change my bite. This change perhaps, and aiming to once again chew with the right side more, I suspect is messing around with the jaw alignment. I can't be sure though. The pain is so intense, and triggered by a nerve reception that it may be a nerve problem. If it were only muscular, why is it triggered, as it certainly is, by the sensitive tooth?

Anyway, I've decided to avoid doctors for now while I experiment with jaw exercises and strategies. The pain is at times intolerable to the extent of wanting to kill myself to avoid it (that bad), but perhaps this is a release of months of tension, or something along the lines of an adjustment to my life-long jaw alignment which will normalise in a few days. Perhaps there is hope.

Agony and Wars

A good day at the Good Vibrations event yesterday but the last couple of days and nights have been dominated by agonising jaw and gum pain, caused by muscle spasms and cramps. What I'd considered tooth sensitivity for the last few months was unusually painful because of this. In such attacks my jaw and gums flow with awful spasm pain which can endure for hours without respite. The tension seems to spread from or to my throat too, so perhaps it is related to the (highly unusual) many hours of speaking I've recently been doing during audiobook recording. The pain feels like being held hostage by a gaggle of spectral ant-torturers, as the pain glides and flows like water. Pushed by massage from one area to flow to another in a never-ending spiral.

A drink of alcohol causes a similar painful spasm, normally just one that tends to last a few seconds. Now, I find that eating or drinking anything seems to trigger this, in particular an over-reaction by the sensitive tooth, and that it can last hours.

The upside is that this finally resolves the mystery of months of mouth pain, and with hope this is the last gasp of these symptoms, the tangible effects of months of worry (worry mostly about this actual problem) evaporating. At least I know the very painful, but not damaging, cause.

Today and yesterday this is dominating every act. I've decided to rest today. The audiobooks are now complete. I think next I'll work a little on music, the album/EP with the (appropriate) war theme. It's difficult to create something that can even approach the enormity of this subject. The songs I'm working on seem trite and light somehow, but I must work and do my best, not over-think to the extent of a project dragging on for too long. Much of The Beatles output was trite and light, short, unstructured.

Burning Circus Audiobook Complete

Completed The Burning Circus audiobook today. Unsure what to do next. I've been sketching works for the long paused album on war, which seems chillingly appropriate.