Facial Paresthesia

Fifteen months ago, on my birthday, I had my wisdom teeth pulled. All four. The bottom were pretty impacted and the top were on their way to destruction. A couple of days after the procedure I called the surgeon to ask when the numbness would go away... apparently it should have...3 hours after it was complete! Not the case here. When I returned for my post-op check up, I was told that the numbness could last a week, a month, six months, a year, or possibly forever. Now wait, lets go back a moment... when I signed all the wavers (pre-op), this was one section included- but I didn't think anything of it... I was more worried about dying on my birthday because of the general anesthesia!

Anyhow, so the numbness should have been gone- but I was a 'rare' case. How a rare case you ask? Well, my inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) runs closer than normal to the root of the wisdom tooth... as a matter of fact, it touched the root. So when the surgeon removed the tooth, he hit the nerve. When he hit the nerve, it damaged it, possibly broke it... obviously. He tells me all this during my post-op appointment- AFTER I tell him that my jaw is still numb. Sigh. Anyhow, this IAN branches from the mandibular nerves, then runs along the bottom of your jaw- it branches off into smaller nerves that surround your facial bone- in the case of the anterior mental nerve (not the one that makes you have a nervous breakdown- hahah- funny), it branches off and runs through a small hole at your chin, called the mental foramen. This nerve also has been damaged. So I basically have a tingly feeling (imagine your mouth is 'waking up' from novocaine), all the time- ranging from the posterior mandible to mid-chin.





Facial paresthesia. This is what I have. I have been living with it for over a year and it is getting really annoying. I was told that it can fixed with surgery... but in my case the risks outweigh the benefits. Double sigh. What's worse is when the air pressure changes, the paresthesia changes. Call me crazy, but it 'flares up'. The numbness grows (that's the best way to describe it) and it intensifies. Normally it is tolerable... but when the weather changes (mostly to cold/rainy or snowy), the numbness can be felt all along the bottom jaw... mid chin to the back of my mandible. It is obnoxious. When it starts to change, it is a novelty- novel because I run my upper teeth along my lips and make 'tracers' of tingly feelings... weird- and hard to explain... I guess you have to experience it to fully understand! But as it intensifies, I get rather irritated and I stop 'playing' with my lip and jaw.

Since moving to Ohio, I feel like it is worse. Worse because the weather here changes so often. Yesterday the air pressure changed pretty rapidly, and my face took a beating! It was funny at first- but not. I complain to Tom, but I think he just thinks I am crazy. Sometimes I do think I am crazy... a couple months ago I was in some pretty agonizing pain- on the left side (side with paresthesia)... I went to the dentist and they told me nothing was wrong. Well that was great news. So now I overlook pain and tell myself that it is just the numbness playing tricks on me :)

Point of this blog? I really don't know if I have one... I am just rambling about my frustrations of living with this condition. That and the fact that it is raining... again- so it is irritating me... again. I guess my main point is, for all you reading this that have lived with, or even recovered from paresthesia... I feel your pain. Ha! No pun intended!