So This is Pain | I Can't Feel my Face

It was at one of my regular acupuncture appointments when I was updating my naturopath on my recent experience of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP - more on this to come) when she said “You should really write about your health journey this past year. You have been trying all the things and you may be able to help some people.” From that moment, I felt instantly compelled to write about this past year and a half. It is funny as I don’t consider myself a writer, nor do I even enjoy writing, but I felt such a strong pull to share my story. To put it mildly, it has been the most difficult time of my life, so writing it all down may even be a cathartic exercise. I guess I’ll only know when I am done writing. And so began the beginning of a five part blog series that starts here.

Back in August of 2021, life was GREAT - it was summer time, I was living my dream coaching career, the kids were all thriving and my husband had recently quit the corporate world to start up a new business. The future looked extremely exciting and we were definitely in a honeymoon phase! I clearly remember reminding myself and my partner to be present and enjoy every minute as nothing is permanent and at some point we’d start riding down the rollercoaster.

Sure enough around October of the same year, the reality of a partner who was starting up a business started to form some cracks in our glassy life. Things weren’t going as he’d hoped, he was having to work some miserable late night shifts until 2-3am, cash flow was negative and the stress was starting to build in both of us as he was putting in so much time and effort with no pay cheque. We were both starting to panic. As a couple who rarely fought, there were lots of uncomfortable conversations, lots of tears and a lot of things left unsaid. To say it was an adjustment would be an understatement.

In November I started to notice some tingling sensations in my nose and lip, but only on the right side. These sensations would come and go, so I kept thinking it would pass. We all get those aches and pains that just disappear, right? The tension started building in my body, but it was slow and gradual and I was so stressed that I didn’t even notice how bad it was becoming. I kept putting off treatment as we no longer had benefits and the symptoms continued to increase. A couple of days after Christmas, I was telling my husband how much pain I was in and how not only was my face tingling a lot, but my right hand and right foot were also feeling numb and strange. He unhesitatingly encouraged me to get some therapy and not to worry about the money. Health comes first. I booked an appointment to see our favourite massage guy, Adam, who does a lot of fascial work and body alignment, not your typical masseuse. He had been the one who always solved and corrected our body issues over the past. He was quite alarmed with how much tension was in my neck, shoulder, jaw and arm. His work helped somewhat, and when I left he suggested I reach out to my doctor, as he felt that nerve pain is not usually a good thing and should get looked at. When I got home, I reluctantly wrote to my doctor. Perhaps I underplayed my pain and worry, but based on the fact that the massage had helped somewhat with my symptoms, she suggested muscle relaxants for the time being.

I was feeling quite scared, to be honest. Very quickly I learned that looking up any of my symptoms online was a very, very bad idea. There was mention of MS, stroke, Bell's palsy, brain tumors, you name it. One of my biggest concerns was that our family had a big trip to Costa Rica planned in the coming month and the thought of ruining it with some severe diagnosis was something I did not want to face. How could I ruin the plans of a dream holiday that we had been planning for a year with our best friends?

We spent that New Year's Eve celebrating with our good friends. On Jan 1st I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. When I went to wash my face, the right side of my face was completely numb and my eyes were all goopy. I could not even feel the water hitting my face. My initial thoughts were that I was hungover and must have been having some sort of allergic reaction. I took an allergy pill and an anti-inflammatory pill and it seemed to settle down somewhat.

Jan 4th, I had my covid booster shot to prepare for our trip to Costa Rica. Four nights later, I had what was now the worst night of my life. My right eye vision was blurred, my face was numb and hot and I felt like the right side of my head was going to explode. Again, too scared to find out what was really going on, I took a cocktail of meds from our medicine cabinet and tried to sleep. Sleep did not come for many hours and I lay there thinking “This is it. My time has come to an end. I don’t know how I can possibly survive the night”. I also thought “It has been a wonderful life. I have seen and done so much. Jeremy will be an amazing dad without me and the kids are going to be just fine”. I had a strange sense of peace within me. There were no tears. Just a strong sense that I may not wake up as something was very wrong.

But as I’m sure you guessed, I did wake up the next day and my symptoms had settled somewhat again. It was on that day that I remembered my amazing naturopath, Jessica, whom I had worked with years ago for anxiety. I reached out to her and got an appointment for mid-January to get some treatment. Jessica remained calm and assured me we would work through this one step at a time eliminating diagnoses to figure this out. She did acupuncture on me and when she went to check my jaw tension, my jaw was completely engaged. I never knew this was even a thing? I could still chew and open my mouth, but I guess at the hinge of my jaw, it was completely locked. She did some internal manipulation of my jaw which felt great at the time. Little did I know that with nerve pain, as you floss the nerves, they can get pissed off, so there was a more painful period for a few days before some relief set in.

My plan was to see Jessica again before we headed off to Costa Rica, but she had to cancel my next appointment as her whole family came down with Covid, and given she works out of her house, she could not see patients. I was absolutely devastated as she had brought me so much grounding and relief, both mentally and physically. As a backup I went to see my physiotherapist. He was quite concerned about my nerve issues and was also surprised by the intense tension in my face, jaw and neck.

At the end of January, off to Costa Rica we went for ten days. The kids and parents all had a fabulous time, but to be honest, it was the holiday from hell for me. My neck was like a tree trunk on the right hand side, my face, lips and tongue were all tingling and my right arm, hand and foot were all numb and had lost a lot of sensation. There was so much internal pain, but none of it was visible to anyone else. The couple of times I had a beer or glass of wine, it exacerbated my symptoms so I decided alcohol was going to be out. This was the beginning of my almost-dry 2022 which was a blessing in disguise. To manage the pain, every day and night I was taking ibuprofen and muscle relaxants, which helped somewhat, but never fully. Two days before our trip ended, my eyes started gooping and I felt a plugged sensation in my right ear that felt like a sinus infection. I saw the pharmacist, got some meds and when we got home, it seemed as though the sinus infection was gone.

The whole time we were away, I remember thinking “I cannot wait to get home and get rid of whatever the heck is going on with me”. Little did I know, this was just the beginning of an extremely long healing process that would last at least another year if not two.

Looking back now at this time, I would say my biggest lesson was not listening to my body and seeking help earlier on. I was putting my family’s joy before my health and it resulted in a whole lot of pain, suffering and depression that I did not know was even possible.

Photo: New Year's Eve 2021 - the night before my life fell apart.