I have been to the neurologist. He asked me a lot of questions about the medicines I'd been taking and how the pain manifests itself. Then he carried out a load of tests to see if my coordination was OK. He found nothing untoward.

His conclusion was much the same as that of the previous neurologist that I saw: idiopathic facial pain, or in other words, facial pain of indeterminate cause.

He could offer no suggestions as I had tried everything that he might have recommended. He said he'd consult with his colleagues to see if they had any ideas, but it doesn't look hopeful.

He was in some doubt as to which way I was transitioning. I put him right, but I won't be surprised if he uses the wrong pronouns when he writes to my GP.

I'm still waiting for an ENT appointment.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

I have ordered some parts which I hope will allow me to complete the building of King Bozric II, my next computer.

Spent two hours in bed this afternoon in abject agony. This is pain that will bring tears to your eyes. I was hoping to go out and enjoy the sunny weather, but it will have to wait 'til tomorrow now.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

I am so sorry for your agony, Reenie. Is there nothing you can do for it? Everyone has a right to adequate pain medication. I hope those pain nerves of yours decide somehow to cool it down.

A year ago, my face pain was so unendurable and so 24/7/365, that I finally gave in after six months' resistance, and I started taking gabapentin (Neurontin). It worked and continues to work. In my case, that period of mental twilight was only about two weeks (and may not occur at all for most. I’d say, just don’t drive the first few days.) Since then, I've sort of managed the pain with a combination of gabapentin and as few pain killers as I can get away with. When I say that it works, I mean that the pain leaves me alone enough of the time, so that I can take care of myself.

Such unrelenting pain is exhausting and can be psychologically traumatizing. Your ENT should not only attempt a diagnosis, but grant you pain relief as well.

Become well.

Healing Trans-Atlantic Hugs

Hi Laura

I was on gabapentin for a year and came off of it about a month ago because it was giving me high blood pressure. I've tried all sorts, including pregabalin which was mildly psychoactive. It did knock the pain back, but I was nearly run over in the road a few times because I was out with the fairies.

I made an appointment at the doctor's yesterday and I'm going to ask her if she knows for an acupuncturist.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Oh dear. 90kg (14st 2lb). I've put on 5 kilos in two weeks.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Spent all afternoon walking around Glasgow enjoying the sunny weather.

Caught some seagulls having fun >>

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Granniversary! I'm 105 today!

(Note to newbies: Granny left me her birthday in her will.)

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Congrats, Reenie!

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I have to EDIT because I can't SPELL!!

Thanks Juz.

I spent the whole of yesterday trying to get my new computer to work.

I'd started building it before I left Somerset last year, so it's already a year out of date. It needed a few parts to complete it - a few leads and a pair of fans. I ordered these from dabs.com during the week, but for some reason they cancelled it and so there was an email waiting for me when I got up yesterday. I sent them one in reply. You can guess as to its content.

I gave my business to PC World and Maplin instead and spent a good deal of the day walking from one to the other and back.

I connected all the remaining leads and plugged it into the telly, which has a VGA connector so that it can act as a PC monitor. I'd already established that the laptop will display on the telly, but the PC wouldn't. I kept getting the message "out of range". What this means is that the telly doesn't recognise the output signal from the PC.

The laptop works because its set to a screen size that the telly recognises. The PC will display on the telly when the operating system is installed and set up correctly, but I can't install the operating system until I can get the telly to recognise the output signal. Catch 22.

So I need to buy a monitor.

I know that the PC works, because I can boot Knoppix from CD and the boot screen displays perfectly well on the telly.

I need to tidy the flat today. There are wires and electrical debris everywhere. It looks like an Airbus crashed in here.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Hi Irene,

dabs.com are a seriously bad company, I've had nothing but agro when dealing with them. They have no true customer support or even a telephone number where you can speak to a human, but instead have a live chat function where you can speak to some totally clueless individual in the US. They claim this is to help them keep their costs down, although there are cheaper hardware shops out there.

A quick search on the net reveals the amount of bad press dabs.com have received over the years.

On the other hand for a thoroughly good company I would look no further then scan.co.uk, They've had my business for a number of years now.

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When I grow up I want to be a BIZARRO fire engine

Thanks for that, nenaw. I bought a load of stuff from dabs last year and they were fine. Something seems to have happened since.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Some time ago, 2000 I think it was, BT set up a free-to-business webspace service called BT Click. I signed up (under my old name, naturally).

This service is completely unrelated to their supply of telephone services. It comprises an email address and a modest amount of webspace that I have long since ceased to use. I tried getting them to delete it last November, to no avail. I tried again last week. Here's what has come back:

BT wrote:

Dear Miss Bujman Thank you for your E-mail dated 28/07/08 about the online account and the E-mail address been closed. As per your request that you want to get the online account and the E-mail address been closed so for that you need to speak to the Consumer Billing - eBilling Helpdesk. The toll free number to speak to them is 0800 328 9642 and the work time is 08:00 - 18:00 Mon-Sat. If you want to see more or less call details on your bill you can change the level of itemisation ? do this quickly and easily via our website, visit www.bt.com/changeitemisation.

What the fuck are they talking about? Can you make any sense of this? Buggered if I can.

They're delivering my BT Vision later. I hope they don't screw that up; it's been a pleasant morning so far.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

I see part of Weston-super-Mare burnt down yesterday. Shame it was that side of the shore-line.

Weston used to be great for a day out when we were kids back in the Seventies. It turned into a shit-hole after that. Like Burnham-on-Sea just down the coast, it was OK as long as you didn't come inland. I hope they rebuild the pier.

I'm busy building Bozric, my new tower system. Having fun trying to get Win2K to see a drive larger than 137GB at the moment. SP4 required. I have it, but it still sees the 320GB drive as 137GB at the point of installation.

I have a left-over 40GB drive from Eegor* and I'll use that as the boot drive and save the 320GB drive as a slave. I have an external 320GB drive that Harris* and his Win2K are quite happy with.

(*Harris = laptop, *Eegor = old tower system from Somerset, now dismantled for spares.)

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering

Bozric lives! This is the first meaningful thing I've done with him - post on tzone. I haven't fettled Adblock yet and I didn't realise there was so much advertising crap all over the forum.

Well soon say bye-bye to that...

He's running Win2K Pro for the time being. I'll upgrade to Win XP Pro when I've fettled the hardware.

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If music be the food of love, stand by for a good rogering