We are patients living with Trigeminal Neuralgia, here for your support.

TN and Physical Activity

Can anyone give insight to working out with TN? I was very active before I was diagnosed with this 6 months ago, I ran 1/2 marathons, I was at the gym all the time and was always hiking or biking or doing some type of activity but now I've found aside from having no energy at all, that anything that gets my blood rushing or makes me strain causes terrible pain and attacks. With spring coming I was hopeful I would be able to get back to my outdoor activities, are those days long gone for me? Has anyone else experienced this? I'm pretty young to have this and it is just so discouraging to think about the life it's sucking out of me and all the things it's preventing me from doing. Nonetheless, if anyone has an answer or ideas to working out or good activities that don't cause pain, or how to overcome that - please advise!!

Tags: activity, out, physical, running, working

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Permalink Reply by Gina Berg on June 13, 2010 at 11:44am

This is a great conversation, I'm really thankful for everyone's posts. It's so strange that different things trigger pain for everyone. I guess that is what makes TN and ATN so difficult to treat. For me, moving my head around doesn't bother me too much, it's just the blood pressure thing but my doctor just put me on meds to lower my already low blood pressure. Still doesn't help but I try to get out and enjoy the day - just can't push myself too much and have to limit my activities. I try to keep a good attitude and instead of living in fear and staying in the house all the time, I'll try anything once and if it hurts, I stop and grin and bear it through the pain... most the time while looking like a crazy person to the rest of the world. It hurts like crazy but a positive attitude helps (it's hard to remember that when it feels like someone is skinning your face off and you did it to yourself because you went out and went for a bike ride and you knew you would probably get an attack if you did that) but at least you got to enjoy 15 minutes or so of the outdoors right?? Just my theory.