Multiple electric shocks

It was mid-November 2007 when I got really scared. I had just checked into a hotel in order to attend some meetings. I carried my suitcase and laptop case up the stairs to my room, bent down to place them on the floor and as I stood up a series of electric shocks hit me. I wasn't touching any part of my face so they seemed to be spontaneous, and what is worse - they wouldn't stop. I cried out in pain and dropped on the bed clutching and pressing my head. After what seemed an eternity, but in reality was probably only a minute, they stopped.

I remained perfectly still on the bed, not daring to breathe or move. I tried to think calm thoughts to slow my racing pulse. Slowly I calmed down and started to breathe again. Then, without me moving at all - another series of electric shocks hit me. I gripped my head tight and tried to calm down. Tears came in my eyes, my nose filled with mucus, but after a minute the pains stopped again. I laid for awhile panting short breaths through my mouth like a dog.

I no longer just felt scared - I felt terror. What if the next series of excruciating pains didn't stop? I was beginning to understand why they call this the "suicide disease". I very carefully got up from the bed and cautiously began walking on the spot and around the room for about 20 minutes (this was something that I had discovered sometimes helped). All the time I was breathing through my mouth and taking care not to bend or look down or up.

I knew that I couldn't go to the meeting later that afternoon. And I had just taken the last half tablet of tegretol. I knew I had to communicate with someone to get help. But I couldn't talk on the telephone and I didn't dare go outside the room. Cautiously I set up my laptop and emailed a friend and colleague, but discovered he wasn't in town. So I emailed the people I was supposed to meet, explaining the situation. They offered to help. Without any real expectation that they would be able to manage it, I asked them to try to get tegretol for me - and within half an hour, they emailed that they had got it and would deliver it to the hotel shortly. Suddenly things were looking brighter.

Then, just as suddenly, I had another electric shock - though not multiple. But this time I realised that it was because I had breathed through my nose. So that was the trigger - breathing through my nose. And the multiple electric shocks were because at the first one I would inhale sharply through my nose, thereby causing a sequence of spasms. Anyway, I got up and started walking around the room - breathing through my mouth - and that eased it. Got to keep walking .......

Now that I knew what the trigger was for this TN episode, I felt a lot happier. Bending down and lifting things with my right hand also seemed to bring it on - but that might have been because when doing those things I breathed through my nose more energetically.

And so this is the reason that I sometimes walk around with tissue stuffed up my right nostril.