mahiwaga

(I’m going to use tic douloureux either as a band name or my next user name.)

So I have been having severe left sided facial pain for about five days now. It felt like broken glass had embedded itself in my face and eventually it reached a point where I considered going to the ER. But I’ve been managing it with around-the-clock Alleve and generic acetaminophen, with some occasional ethanol to help me stay asleep.

I began to worry that I had developed trigeminal neuralgia. The area affected corresponded pretty well with the territory of the mandibular branch. Reading up on it, the prognosis isn’t that great. While it’s initially treatable with medications, eventually it becomes resistant to meds and you have to get surgery, and even with surgery, it can recur.

Yesterday, though, my face began to swell up. As ﾐA彡 would put it, it looks like I’m storing nuts in my cheek for the winter.

I guess this really started a few months ago, when I started having problems with my backmost left lower molar. It was exquisitely painful to the touch and very sensitive to both hot and cold. I could’ve sworn it was a cavity, but I saw a dentist and she even x-rayed it and didn’t see any cavities, so she diagnosed me with dentin hypersensitivity and recommended using a toothpaste containing potassium nitrate.

It actually helped for a while, but then it came back with a vengeance five days ago, quickly spreading to the rest of my face.

I also had problems with salivary duct stones before, back when I was in med school, and I saw an ENT who extracted one that happened to be at the opening underneath my tongue.

So I’m thinking this might be what it is. It accounts for the broken glass sensation and it accounts for the swelling. I’m hoping I can get it to pass, but so far, no luck.

Just remembering the beginning of the second reading from September 27, when ﾐA彡 and I starting going back to church.

The WHO announced that bacon, sausage, and other processed meats are on par with cigarettes and asbestos.

Bacon, hot dogs and processed meats cause cancer, WHO says • 2015 Oct 26 • PBS Newshour

Processed meats do cause cancer - WHO • 2015 Oct 25

Red meat also increases your cancer risk, though not as badly.

It’s based on a metaanalysis so all caveats apply.

Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat • 2015 Oct 26 • Bouvard, V et al • The Lancet Oncology • The Lancet

Actually, a metaanalysis of metaanalyses? Their main line of reasoning stems from this metaanalysis:

Red and Processed Meat and Colorectal Cancer Incidence: Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies • 2011 Jun 6 • Chan, D et al • PLOS One

The main culprits are N-nitroso-compounds (NOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heterocyclic aromatic amines.

Role of N-nitroso compounds (NOC) and N-nitrosation in etiology of gastric, esophageal, nasopharyngeal and bladder cancer and contribution to cancer of known exposures to NOC • 1995 Jun 29 • Mirvish, S. • Cancer Letters

N-nitroso compounds as a cause of human cancer. • 1987 • IARC Sci Publ. • PubMed

Speaking of cancer risk, rice—especially rice from the U.S.—is full of arsenic.

Five Things You Need To Know About Arsenic In Rice (Before Dinner Time) • 2012 Oct 2 • WBUR CommonHealth • Reform and Reality

How much arsenic is in your rice? • Consumer Reports’ new data and guidelines are important for everyone but especially for gluten avoiders • 2014 Nov • Consumer Reports

Given the recent report about how processed meat and red meat increase cancer risk, basically the Filipino diet (of rich people living in cities) will kill you, although white rice has a lot less arsenic than brown rice.