An appointment with the neurologist Thursday, a blood test across the street right after. He didn't believe the aching mouth has anything to do with regenerating nerves from the jaw operation. He mentioned something called Temporal Arteritis and said there was a twenty percent chance it was the problem (hence the blood test). He said he was happy when it was the culprit as he had a pill I could take and awake without ache the next morning. He had my attention. Otherwise it was something like an upside down headache caused by stress, what kind of stress was anybody's guess, and it would go on as long as it wanted, nothing in his bag of tricks to make it go away.

Dorky sounding name, though: Temporal Arteritis? R-ter-ee-I-tis as in artery. Doesn't have that doomed sense of terminality about it. Which is good. He called today to say no dice on my Arteritis. Too bad. One in five. He suggested I stop taking my cholesterol drug the next three weeks to see if that could be the problem after I'd mentioned they'd put me on it around the time this thing started. My doctors (one has many doctors as one grows older) said it wasn't related when I'd asked. I'll be a little pissed that I so readily believed them if this cholesterol pill turns out to be the culprit.

And if all this comes to naught I'm going to try acupuncture. My friend MSM suggested someone who'd done her good in Sacramento and who had another office in Oakland. Come to think of it MSV's husband has had luck with another local. A woman at the office with a healthy dose of acupuncture skepticism tried it after everything else had failed and it knocked her chronic pain down by about 90%. Nice number 90%. I could easily learn to like it. My friend MRE had a similar experience so I guess even I will give it a try. Useful, living in a cosmopolitan community, having friends who know the ropes and speak the language(s) when you're ordering lunch or curing diseases. On a Friday. Here in Oakland.