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

Face Pain Info Pages - Part 1

About The Face Pain Info Page and the Authors

The idea for this page originated with two of our site moderators -- Stefanie Poulton (Stef) and Gloria Erickson ("G-Force"). These two wanted to gather some of my (Red Lawhern's) postings to various discussion threads on Living with TN, in a central archive where they wouldn't get lost and where members could access them conveniently. They also volunteered to help put this archive together under the tabs that brought you here. Susie Margaret Ross, a third friend, volunteered gobs of her time to help bring the formats of this piece closer to print media publication standards.

These contributors should be credited for their time, experience, and effort on your behalf, the reader. As principal author, I should be taken to task for any errors of fact or attitude that I may have included in the material that follows. Feel free to point out my goofs in the comment window at the bottom of any of the sub-pages of this Face Pain Info tab. We'll fix mistakes.

Give us -- and yourself -- a little time, please. The print version of this article is over 60 type-written pages long, now divided into about 20 discrete web page sections to make it a little more manageable. .

When reading about health and medical issues or questions, it is appropriate to know who has written what you're reading -- and whether or not they have sufficient knowledge or experience to have a credible opinion. Stef and G-Force will be well known to many members on our site from their many supportive postings and from their work as moderators. They are both pain patients and competent readers of the medical literature. But unlike them, your page lead author is not a pain patient -- only the spouse of someone who is a patient. In my case, the following answer to the question "who is this guy" is expanded from an article on my personal website, "Classification and Treatment of Chronic Face Pain."

[Clicking on the link above will open another browser page. When you've read as much as you want, just close that tab and come on back. The intention here is NOT to divert you from Living with TN. This is a place where you can learn a great deal and benefit from interacting with other patients.]

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Bio for Richard A. "Red" Lawhern, Ph.D.

Although my hair was once red, what little hair I have left isn't any more. I am a longtime patient advocate and Web author, although my doctorate (UCLA 1976) is in engineering systems, not medicine. I'm a technically trained medical layman who reads a huge volume of medical literature and remembers a lot of it. You can think of me as a sort of biological learning machine working on your behalf.

I began researching chronic neurological facial pain in 1996, when my spouse presented with pain diagnosed as bilateral Vaso-Glossopharyngeal and Trigeminal Neuralgia. I served the US Trigeminal Neuralgia Association (TNA) as Webmaster and a member of its Board of Directors in the late 1990s, co-authored the design of the TNA National Patient Survey in 2000-2001, and contributed to a more recent version still (in July 2011) being vetted by the TNA Medical Advisory Board.

I am no longer affiliated with TNA management or site administration. Nothing on this page has been reviewed or approved by them or anybody else, other than by my co-leaders, Stef and G-Force. Keep in mind also that the content of this page is edited from my own research and postings and those of other subscribers. I believe that the content reflects "informed" opinions, but it may not reflect the views of other site moderators or of the Owners. The Owners are not responsible or legally liable for the accuracy of information here.

I currently provide information research and referral support to chronic facial pain patients through TNA Connect, the TNA Network, LivingwithTN.org, and a Neurological Disorders support group at WebMD. I have done similar volunteer work in the past at About.com. My 2001 redesign of the TNA home page was acknowledged by an Aesculapius Award of Excellence in Health Communications from the Health Improvement Institute. I am also credited as a co-author of the Internet Resources appendix of “Striking Back -- the Trigeminal Neuralgia Handbook” (first edition).

In the 16+ years of my work in chronic pain patient advocacy and support, I have corresponded by e-mail with possibly 3,000 patients, family members, and physicians around the world. It would probably be fair to say that I've talked -- as a layman -- with more chronic facial pain patients than the average neurologist sees in a 40-year career of practice.