Spoke to fellow TN suffer's

Early in today's sessions we listened to a Pharmacist discuss the pharmaceutical approaches to treating neuropathic pain. And the routes particular chemicals must take to hinder this pain. It is always amazing that opiates aren't particularly helpful in treating this pain. And TN pain responds to different anti epileptic drugs than say diabetes neuroptic pain. We heard about the types of drugs normally used and how they work and which ones have more adverse side effects than others.

I found it interesting in a summary that only 5% of patients find any long term good quality of life by treating their TN pain with medications.

And 70-90% find long term improvement from surgical intervention.

Today was especially interesting at the conference if someone was interested in surgical techniques for dealing with TN.

MVD (the surgery I had) is proven to be the most effective surgical approach. Less problems with lasting issues after surgery. But of course it is the most dangerous of the surgical approaches because it is the most invasive. There was some disagreement regarding the mortality from MVD but it was pretty much around 1 in 1000. (some said more.. some said way less) Dr. Janetta said that no one had died as a result of this surgery since 1979.. I am not sure if these are worldwide statics or US alone.

They ask for volunteers who've had surgical procedures and were pain free since. So I got to share my story this afternoon along with 6 others. In this group of people.. most are in pain and this is why they are here. Not many people continue their involvement with TNA once they've stopped having pain. So I hope we were encouraging to some considering their options. Mostly I hope I was able to promote the Lord Jesus and my trust in Him.



Tonight will be the gala and the end of the conference.

There was a really bad hurricane (Ike) in Texas last night.. and our travels will be affected by the aftermath tomorrow.