A woman who suffered from an intense pain condition known as ‘suicide disease’ has revealed how she refused all painkillers to achieve her dream of becoming a mum.
Toni Lea Lawrence, 33, from the Gold Coast, Queensland, was diagnosed with a chronic pain condition affecting the trigeminal nerve in 2010.
She said she had been at work at the time when her left side stopped functioning and she was engulfed in pain.
‘I was sitting at my desk reading emails and my first thought was that I was having a stroke because I was in so much pain and my left side was struggling to work, and I could barely talk,’ Ms Lawrence said.
While doctors warned Ms Lawrence it would be next to impossible given her pain medication would have a negative impact on her fertility – she was determined to make her dream of becoming a mum a reality.
Toni Lea Lawrence (pictured) suffers from trigeminal neuralgia – a condition which affects parts of the head
While the pain of Ms Lawrence’s condition is unbearable, she revealed how she refused to let this stop her from realising her dream of becoming a mum
Trigeminal neuralgia (TM) is often referred to as the ‘suicide disease’ because the pain is so unbearable.
The condition affects around one in 20,000 Australians and can be caused by many factors including a stroke, tumour or multiple sclerosis.
Sometimes as in the case of Ms Lawrence, the cause is unknown.
Ms Lawrence was working as paralegal in 2010 when she was struck with intense pain affecting her face and the left side of her body.
‘My colleague came up to me and said my face looked strange, referring to the left side of my face because I couldn’t move it due to the pain,’ she said.
Ms Lawrence has described the pain of her condition as feeling like ‘someone has fishing wire wrapped around each tooth and is trying to pull them out’
‘The doctor’s surgery was straight across the road from work, so I went there straight away. The GP thought I might have a brain tumour, so I was sent for an MRI immediately.’
While doctors weren’t able to determine what caused her condition, the debilitating nature of the disease meant she not only needed to manage it, she also had to give up her career.
A distressing aspect of Ms Lawrence’s illness is attacks tend to come and go, each lasting between about 10 seconds to a few minutes.
They can be present for a while, then go away for weeks or months, then come back again.
While Ms Lawrence needed to give up her career when her illness struck, she was determined to become a mum at all costs
Despite professional setbacks, a few years later in 2015, Ms Lawrence married her husband Kieran and the pair were looking forward to starting a family.
However, she knew her pain medication had a negative impact on her fertility, something she would have to wean herself off in order to get pregnant.
‘I found out that prolonged use of the pain medication is linked to infertility in women, and the unbearable pain means that most women with TN can’t carry a child at all,’ she said.
‘It was scary, all I ever wanted was to become a mum so the thought of not being one was awful.
She said it was a difficult decision to come off medication because she knew her pain would be ‘horrendous’, however, this didn’t compare to how badly she wanted a child.
Fortunately, Ms Lawrence became pregnant in 2016, but her pregnancy was difficult as it heightened the pain and she couldn’t take any pain relief to ease it.
Ms Lawrence had a fall when she was 35 weeks pregnant – something that caused her baby to drop and make contractions begin
Instead, she took regular walks to distract herself from the pain and used heat packs frequently.
‘When I was pregnant, the pain wasn’t too bad at first but from week five it got increasingly worse,’ she said.
Then one day at 35 weeks, she recalled she was folding clothes in the nursery and pain quickly took hold of her face.
Baby Theo, now aged two (pictured left with Ms Lawrence) was born via caesarean section in 2017
‘I made my way downstairs to get my heat pack, but I couldn’t think clearly,’ she said.
‘I started to fall down the full flight of stairs and at the bottom I instantly started to cramp. The fall pushed the baby right down into my pelvis.
The fall caused the baby to drop and made contractions begin.
And although doctors managed to hold off Theo’s birth for another week, he was delivered via caesarean April 13, 2017.
Ms Lawrence with her husband Kieran (left and her son, Theo right) are living their dream of family life – despite the debilitating effects of her pain condition
After the birth of her son, Ms Lawrence was able to start taking pain medication again to manage her symptoms. But because of the side effects, she was unable to breastfeed.
It feels like someone has fishing wire wrapped around each tooth and is trying to pull them out
Her dream was to have more children, however, over the past few years, her pain has become so bad it is ‘impossible’ to cope without medication.
‘After 10 years, the pain has changed a lot, and the pain I have now is a constant burning pain on the left side of my face,’ she said.
‘It also feels like someone has fishing wire wrapped around each tooth and is trying to pull them out.
‘My tongue feels like it’s being cut in half, it’s numb and tingly. I get a pain like an electric shock around my eyes.
Ms Lawrence has come to terms with the fact she will only be able to have one child, however, she is delighted she was able to realise her dream
While Ms Lawrence won’t be able to have more children, she celebrates having realised her dream of becoming a mum – against huge odds.
‘Never give up on your dream; I always wanted to be a mum and it happened.
The 33-year-old understands all too well why her condition has the nickname it does, but trying to take each day as it comes helps her through – moment by moment.
‘It’s tough and you find yourself asking how on earth you’re going to be able to keep putting up with this amount of pain, but you wake up the next day and you do it,’ she said.
‘When you have a condition like this, just take one day at a time.’