Final Jeopardy (Alexandra Cooper Mysteries) - Linda Fairstein [81]
When this pain returned, and then came back a third and fourth time, Ferrucci went to his dentist. Probing the tooth and placing ice on it, the dentist attempted to reproduce the same fearsome effects but failed. He could do a root canal, he said, but he had no evidence that the tooth was the problem. Ferrucci then went to a neurologist, who suggested a terrifying possibility. Perhaps, he said, Ferrucci was suffering from trigeminal neuralgia, more commonly known as the suicide disease. It was a nerve disorder so painful that it was believed to drive people to kill themselves. He recommended getting the root canal. It might do the trick, he said, and save them both from the trouble of ransacking the nervous system for answers.
Ferrucci got the root canal. It did no good. The attacks continued. He went to another neurologist, who prescribed anticonvulsion pills. When he read about the medicine’s side effects, Ferrucci said, “I didn’t know whether to take the pills or buy a gun.” He did neither and got an MRI. But putting on the helmet and placing his head in the cramped cylinder filled him with such anxiety that he had to go to another doctor for sedatives.
He had no idea what was wrong, but it wasn’t getting any better. As the Jeopardy project moved along, Ferrucci continued to make presentations to academics, industry groups, and IBM brass. But he started to take along his number two, Eric Brown, as a backup. “If I don’t make it through the talk,” he told Brown, “you just pick up where I leave off.”
In time, Ferrucci started to recognize a certain feeling that preceded the attacks. He sensed it one day, braced himself against a wall, lowered his head slightly, and awaited the pain. It didn’t come. He moved his head the same way the next time and again he avoided the pain. He asked his neurologist about a possible link between the movements of his neck and the facial pain. He was told there was no possible connection.
Months passed. The Ferruccis were considering every option. “Someone told us we should get a special mattress,” said Elizabeth. Then a friend suggested a specialist in craniofacial pain. The visit, Ferrucci learned, was not covered by his insurance plan and would cost $600 out of pocket. He decided to spend the money. A half hour into the meeting, the doctor worked his hands to a spot just below Ferrucci’s collarbone and pressed. The pain rocketed straight to the site of his deadened molar. The doctor had found the connection. A number of small contraction knots in the muscle, myofascial trigger points, created the pain, he said. The muscle was traumatized, probably due to stress. With massage, the symptoms disappeared. And Ferrucci kept them at bay by massaging his neck, chest, and shoulders with a two-dollar lacrosse ball.
He walked to a shelf by the fireplace and brought back a book, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, bristling with Post-it notes. On one page was an illustration of the sternocleidomastoid. It’s the biggest visible muscle in front of the neck and extends from the sternum to a bony prominence behind the ear. According to the book, trauma within this muscle could cause pain in the head. In a single paragraph on page 53 was a description of Ferrucci’s condition. It had references to toothaches in back molars and a “spillover of pain . . . which mimics trigeminal neuralgia.” Ferrucci could have written it himself.
If a computer like Watson, customized for medicine, had access to that trigger point workbook along with thousands of other books and articles related to pain, it could have saved Ferrucci a molar and months of pain and confusion. Such a machine likely would have been able