Knowledge brings power to better manage our pain.

Sharing our journeys brings hope.

With hope, anything is possible.

I started comfortandencourage.com with a desire to help others gain from my personal journey with Trigeminal Neuralgia. It actually began when I needed to find a scarf that would keep my face protected from the wind and cold, while also provide extra heat to keep my “trigger spots” more settled. I had grown tired of carrying around microwaveable heat-packs (which tended to explode on me, or else lose their heat in only 30 thirty minutes), and of wearing lumpy unattractive scarves which made me feel awkward in public. After no luck finding a scarf that worked well for me, we created one ourselves.

We successfully launched these “Comfort Scarves”, along with “Comfort Masks” (which provide 95% wind and cold protection when you need full coverage) in September, 2008, at the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association’s National Conference to an enthusiastic crowd. I hope you will be sure to check-out these products in our Products section, where you will also find additional products developed with just you in mind.

Creating products wasn’t enough. I decided to develop this website to help others in their own journeys with facial pain.

Goals of comfortandencourage.com:

You can live well with facial pain;
comfortandencourage.com is here to help you do just that!

Judi's Story

The day after Labor Day in 2005, while enjoying my first cup of morning coffee, I suddenly experienced an explosion of pain in my face that felt as though I was being stabbed with a burning hot poker. As soon as I recovered from the shock of that first “attack” a second one followed; within a few days I was immobilized from the pain, weary and frightened.

Three weeks and four doctors later, I learned the name of my pain while consulting an Endodontist. After watching me experience a full-scale attack in his examining chair, the doctor quietly leaned over towards me, touching my arm gently as he spoke:

“Judi, I hate to tell you that I think I know what it is that you have. It’s called Trigeminal Neuralgia.”

He paused here, then added, “. . . but it isn’t good.”

After a few stunned moments, I managed to ask in a voice so high pitched I didn’t recognize it as my own, “Is it fatal?”

His answer changed me - as though in an instant all my atoms rearranged themselves.

“No, but you might wish that it was.”

Three years, a dozen medications, three brain “procedures” (a nicer name for surgery I suppose), and a million tears and prayers later, his words still sometimes ring in my head. My life has been greatly challenged by facial pain, along with its not-so-welcome compadres of depression, mental fatigue, exhaustion and anxiety.

However, my story is not a sad one, because through it and even despite it, I have discovered there is still much life to be lived, and there is adequate strength for the journey. I have come to see that even though I have a serious illness, I am NOT a seriously ill person. There are ways to live well with pain, and it has become my life’s mission to help others know that too.