@johnbishop

Pain is a tough concept to grasp. I only take Actemra but my rheumatologist says it only treats the inflammation. She would be willing to prescribe something for pain if I need it.

Technically I take something for "nerve pain" mostly because of peripheral neuropathy in my feet. I don't call it pain but I do have tingling sensations in my feet. However, I don't have too much sensation in my feet so something that should be painful doesn't hurt so much.

Then there is the entire left side of my face that is now completely numb. I currently have no feeling at all on the left side of my face but it is still extremely "uncomfortable." I call it my crazy face because I can feel all kinds of things that don't exist at all.

Before I had surgery for trigeminal neuralgia, the left side of my face could become electrified by a slight breeze. Those electrical facial headaches were around my left eye. near my temple area and left side of my head and scalp. How my doctors knew it wasn't caused by GCA ... I will never know. Prednisone helped me control the electricity in my face.

The cause of my trigeminal neuralgia headaches wasn't determined until a sophisticated MRI scan was done. It was a vascular problem in the sense that a blood vessel was compressing my trigeminal nerve at the base of my brain. However, the painful electricity I felt was somewhere else.

Same for the radicular leg pain I felt that was due to lumbar spinal stenosis. I would have been willing to have my leg amputated because of the pain but there was nothing wrong with my leg. It was NOT caused by PMR either as was suggested on another forum because prednisone stopped that pain too,