This may be a little jarring to those of you with younger TNKids, but we are in contact with families of kids up to age 20, and not so out of the realm of possibility at all for older teens.  It may also seem inconceivable given how poorly your child is doing and the fact that you are with them all the time.  However, if your child’s pain is managed with medications for periods of time, this may come up.

DISCLAIMER:  First, we are not here to tell you how to parent.  That’s not our place, or the purpose of this site, and we aren’t trying to do so.  By posting this, we are not making a statement either way in regard to allowing or not allowing your child to use alcohol and recreational drugs.  We may or may not have strong feelings on this individually, and as the 4 of us TNMamas together.  HOWEVER, it doesn’t matter one way or the other for the purpose of this post.  Any comments degrading other parents will not be approved for post.

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Especially those of you with older teen TNKids may have kids who have experimented with alcohol and drugs.  This may be with or without your knowledge and/or permission.  If you have a child who is not wrestling with the TN beast, and all the medical issues that come along with that, this leads to family discussions, rules, policies, maybe punishments, whatever.  However, if your child is a TNKid, there are more issues involved that need to be considered, and that is what we are going to discuss here.

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Greater Risks with Recreational Drug & Alcohol Use for TNKids

Drug interactions:

First, you and your child need to understand the very real and extremely serious dangers of combining the medication they are on for Trigeminal Neuralgia with alcohol and recreational drugs.  What seems like an evening of ‘teenage fun’ or ‘rebellion’ can lead to reactions with long term consequences and even death.  Did you read that?  This is NOT something to be messed with.

According to drugs.com here one of the most common TN drugs, Carbemazepine/Tegretol, when combined with alcohol leads to “increase nervous system side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, and difficulty concentrating. Some people may also experience impairment in thinking and judgment. You should avoid or limit the use of alcohol while being treated with carbamazepine.”

It says basically the same thing for many, if not all of the medications prescribed for Trigeminal Neuralgia.  Ingesting alcohol while on these medications worsens the side effects of the medications, including:  dizziness, confusion, insomnia, headache, visual disturbance, loss of motor coordination, etc.  This also includes the rare but serious side effects such as: chest pain, difficulty breathing and seizure.

This is true and even more unpredictable with recreational drug use.

According to the National Institutes of Health, as much at 25% of ER visits have drug/alcohol interaction as a contributing factor.  Linked here.

One evening of poor judgment can be very, very bad when combined with these medications.  Talk to your child about this.  Impress on them the seriousness of the consequences of this decision.

Another note:  Depending on what prescription meds your child is taking, these interactions can be true of things as innocuous as cough syrup.  So you need to be considering side effects and interactions with even the simplest of other medications.  We recommend asking your prescribing physician about safe over-the-counter options for any needs you may have.

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Greater Likelihood of Hospital Screening

When your child is wrestling with Trigeminal Neuralgia, the truth is that they will be seeing doctors and having tests, including blood tests, more than the average young person.  Much more.  And it will at times be very unpredictable.

That means that if your child thinks they can sneak one night and no one will know?  The odds are much higher for your child that someone will find out.  If you find yourself in the ER or at the doctor’s office the next day  – or even for some things (such as cannabis) up to 30 days later – they may wind up with a positive drug screen.

This can wind up being a very big mess.

First, pain patients often run into problems with being suspected of being drug seekers.  This can cause them to be turned away from ERs, pain management offices, or doctors who are in fear of feeding an addiction instead of treating a patient.  (Agree with it or not, it happens.)  If your child shows up positive for recreational drugs in their system, or with the morning after evidence of underage drinking and partying last night, this will wave red flags in front of medical professionals.   Some systems have very strict rules about this, and even if they still want to help you, medical professionals will face problems with doing so.  You don’t want to find yourself in a position where hospital systems refuse to give your child the help they need, or delay it substantially.

Second, with repeated visits to the ER with a minor on multiple medications, social services have been called on at least a couple of our families even without any drug or alcohol use.  Because these families were doing nothing wrong and were following proscribed usage of their medications – and nothing else – these situations were resolved as well you could hope for (though it is infuriating and a subject for another post!).  HOWEVER, if you show up in the ER for help and your child is shown to be “self-medicating” this could be an entirely different battle with a much worse outcome.

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Pain Patients have Greater Likelihood of Addiction Struggles

The last thing I’m going to mention is the longer term risks of recreational drug and alcohol use for our fighters.  See one study here.

The sad truth is, as chronic pain patients, our kids have a greater likelihood of struggling with addiction.   When I watched my daughter in the excruciating pain of TN, I could easily see how this could happen.  Who wouldn’t want an escape from that?  But what may just seem like a momentary escape can lead to a long term battle that snowballs the issues listed above.  As parents, we need to be aware of this risk, and fighting this battle for and with them.  We should also be talking to our kids about the long term ramifications of a momentary decision.

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It may seem like ‘no big deal’ or ‘normal teen rebellion’ to many, but for our kids (and even in some ways adults in this battle) it carries a much greater risk.  Talk to your kids.  Talk to them even if – and maybe best if – it can’t possibly be an issue at this point. Teach them about the dangers, risks and consequences they face beyond what most kids face.

Hugs to you families.  Fight on.