One day in 1996, a severe pain appeared above my left cheek. A neurologist diagnosed it as trigeminal neuralgia, a nerve disorder that creates a stabbing or electric shock-like pain in parts of the face. Briefly, it is caused by a vein rubbing into a nerve in the head and scraping off its insulation, so when the patient makes certain moves, painful shocks come out of the hole in the nerve. My pain came and went.
By 2002, it was so bad that my internist sent me to a specialist at Johns Hopkins, who said he would operate if it became completely unbearable. With a prescription sedative, it became tolerable, and I would sometimes be pain-free. But the pain would eventually return. I had two courses of acupuncture, both of which helped, but the symptoms would still come back during periods of tension.
Around 2005, I discovered Donna Eden and Eden Energy Medicine (EEM). I attended a brief presentation, then a three-day weekend, and then an ISSSEEM (International Society for the Study of Energies and Energy Medicine) convention, where I had the good fortune of sitting with Donna and David at one of the dinner events. I was put in touch with one of their EEM Certified Practitioners, Francie Boyce, and I drove 1-1/2 hours to have treatments from her every other week for maybe a year. There was steady improvement but not a complete cure.
I then turned to a local (Washington, DC) male practitioner for maybe half a year, and then I continued on my own. The trigeminal neuralgia problem was largely resolved, and by 2010 I had come to a complete cure after bringing in techniques from Qigong. With abundant "qi" (energy) in my hands, I found that I could merely pass my hands down my face, from forehead to mouth, and this action (felt inside my head) would push the vein down from contact with the trigeminal nerve, making contact impossible and therefore no irritation of the nerve with the consequent shocks. Along the way, combining EEM with other methods, I was also getting relief from a lifelong struggle with insomnia.
I am now an 88-year old male in good health and happily married. I exercise regularly and do Eden Energy Medicine exercises several times each day, including to help me sleep. I am a scientist by profession, a retired PhD cultural anthropologist.