The enhanced MRI was certainly interesting at one point. They have it timed perfectly or they can see the contrast coming, one or the other. He told me "you are going to feel the liquid coming in your neck, do not cough, swallow or move your head".  He wasn't kidding, my first reaction as I felt it was to cough. It had a metalic taste for a few seconds and I could feel it spread across my lower jaw right under my lip. Didn't hurt, I could just feel it.

Today I noticed a cost on our copy of the receipt. $1,180 if I recall. Add that to yesterday's $900 something for the soft tissue and the same amount for the TMJ. I wonder how much of that Medicare is going to cover and how much Tri Care for Life will pay and what if any are we left with.

After lunch I was sitting in the facial dentist's office. I refused to sit in the exam chair for a long wait for him, I stayed in the waiting room with hub. I knew this visit was going to make him mad and indeed it did.

The very first time I ever saw him I carried a calendar to help me remember days and length of the pain as it is intermittent and my days all run together. He showed no interest in it so I quit keeping the calendar. He asks me the same questions and gets about the same answers.

Today was a bit different. He was ticked off that I refuse to increase the Neurontin and refuse to take the addicting drug Klonipin (sp?) that he prescribed, and that I would listen to my primary doctor and the ENT doctor tell me that I was at the limit for the Neurontin. He shrugged off the fact the ENT thinks my loss of hearing may be tied to it.

Nor was he happy that I was being treated by others for this when it is "his job" to take care of the neuralgia. A catch all name for sure. I have searched the net high and low and I don't fit the neuralgia's listed. He feels the MRI was a waste of time and it isn't going to show a thing. 

He may be right, but he ignored the fact that the radiologist saw something that made him request enhancement.

He does want me to let him know if they find anything, but he see's no reason to see me again if someone else is looking into this. That makes two of us. As it is I almost cancelled today's appointment because I think it is a waste of time. I can just imagine what he wrote on my chart.

In his opinion no ENT has any experience in this and if anyone else is involved it should be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. I told him as a Medicare patient, bottom of the barrel, I have been on a neurologist waiting list long before I saw him.

I also told him that as a patient I feel I am being put in the middle of varying opinions and before long I will just not go to anyone or do anything but continue to have intermittent periods of pain.  Guess I need to make notes on a calendar again and on autopsy maybe they can find an answer some day.

Can I start this decade over?