As long as I can remember, I’ve experienced what (I think) is called neuralgia – random, momentary stabbing pain in all parts of my body, most often in the head, face, and hands. I’ve always assumed that this is just a normal, very common human experience.
Just minutes ago, in fact, I felt it in my upper arm – it feels like someone is jabbing me with a dull needle for a little while (it usually lasts well under a minute, but sometimes longer).
It wasn’t until last night, in a conversation with friends, that I realized it might not be as universal an experience as I thought. We were having dinner and I suddenly felt the pain in my thumb and dropped the fork I was holding (just from being startled). When my friends asked me if I was all right, I said, “Yeah, it’s just neuralgia.” No one had heard the term before, and when I described it (“It’s those random stabbing pains you get, you know?”), everyone said they had never felt anything like that before.
I was surprised to hear that, and now I want to ask you: do you know what I’m talking about and have you ever experienced it before?
Again, it feels like someone is stabbing you with a needle or maybe like a little gremlin is taking your nerve and pinching it between its claws – it’s sharp, very localized pain that lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, and you can feel it anywhere in your body. No muscle spasms accompany it.
Yes, I occasionally get random fiery/stabbing pains that are startlingly intense considering that I haven’t injured myself; most often in my right hand but other places too sometimes. I assumed they had to do with arthritis.
Did you have chicken pox as a small child? It never goes away. Some of the virus survives by hiding in your nerve cells. Occasionally, if the immune system takes a bad hit or there’s some large stressor in your life, it will rev back to life as an attack of shingles. Perhaps the random stabs you feel are very minor attacks of shingles.
Me? I have herpes, which is in the same family as chicken pox. The virus likes to hide out in the nerve ganglia at the base of the spine, which means anything south of there can be hit by neuralgia when the virus stirs. These days, it’s mostly under control*, but when it flares up, it can range from “ant bites” on my left toes to feeling like I’ve gotten a skinned knee on my whole lower leg to feeling like my leg has been doused in gasoline and lit.
Damn antivirals are too expensive for someone with crap insurance, but I ran across several published medical papers showing that propolis - bee glue - has very strong anti-microbial properties and can, in fact, keep herpes I and II in check as well or better than the antivirals.
I did have chicken pox. My mom had this kind of pain when she had shingles – she had the rash on her upper back, and she’d feel the neuralgia mostly on her head.
Mine is completely random and can strike anywhere, rarely in the same place twice. There’s never any accompanying rash, just the pain.
Actually, when I was 18, I started getting it in my face and head a lot, and went to my doctor about it. She had me keep a log of the occurrences to look for a pattern (never could find one) and put me on Elavil, which is used off-label for pain. It helped but made me sleep too much, so I quit taking it after about a year. Nowadays I might feel neuralgia maybe a couple times a week.
I had chicken pox, and I have that type of neuralgia, too - I also thought that everyone had that. You mean most people don’t have random, sharp, stabbing short duration pain?
Anacin used to have a commercial about treating neuritis and neuralgia. I think most everyone has experienced random sharp pains. The pain I had for a couple of years after I had shingles was intense, and this doesn’t sound like what you’re describing. I have neuropathy which gives me aching pains, not sharp ones, but it’s also a nerve pain. Is your pain getting worse, or is it more frequent as you get older?
The other thing I’ve gotten is sharp, stabbing pain in the right side of my right breast, but apparently, that’s a hormonal thing. Sure enough, once I looked at when it occurred, it was clearly a PMS symptom.
Not pain, but I woke up recently to discover that my right foot had mysteriously become paralyzed. Maybe it wasn’t so mysterious, as I’d injured that foot a lot.
After about 5 weeks, during which I used a crutch to get around, the problem resolved on its own.
Yeah, I get those pains, I have had chicken pox and shingles. The frequency, location and duration vary quite a bit, but they are always quite intense when they happen. I had not associated them with any condition, but know from past experience, they happen in clusters and do go away after a while without any intervention, and never seem to indicate any real issue. They are just a pain.
Up until fairly recently, who didn’t have chicken pox as a child? Wouldn’t this be a pretty much universal experience for anyone who did not get the vaccine?