Sometimes it is hard to convince people who are newly diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, to attend a support group event or meeting.

They may have misgivings that the information they receive has no value, after extensively researching Dr Google.

They may feel self conscious speaking in front of others.  They may feel so isolated and hopeless that the effort of attending a support group is just too intimidating.

Other reasons may be there isn’t  a support group near by, or they are in too much pain to attend, or they really can’t speak because of the pain, or that they worry nobody will believe how much devastation has been endured since the diagnosis.

Well we are delighted to highlight the the Melbourne Support Group Meeting event held on August 12th.

Jeremy Russell (neurosurgeon) who is a member of our Medical Advisory Board kindly offered his time to make a presentation at the meeting.  We advertised the meeting on social media – Facebook and Instagram, sent out an email to all Victorian members, highlighted the event on our website calendar and on our monthly digital newsletter ENEWS.

The result was the meeting attracted 23 attendees, 10 of whom were new to the association.  One couple travelled from Bendigo which is a 2 hour car ride each way.

Our volunteers have recently rebooted the Group after our wonderful leader Emily Lovell had to step away after many years volunteering.  Brenda Young and Alan Collard  have taken the reigns.  Both have lived extraordinary lives and have plenty of stories to tell, pre trigeminal neuralgia and of course post trigeminal neuralgia.  We cannot fulfill our vision without volunteers, we are honoured to have this team working hard to raise awareness, provide support, education and advocacy for the benefit of our community 🩵

We welcome our new members and we hope you received valuable information and most importantly hope, from attending the meeting.  We look forward to walking alongside you on your journey.

Many of the Committee Members and other Support Group Leaders from QLD, NSW and SA will be attending the next meeting in October, so add October 14th to your calendars and come along to meet us.

Victoria Health have published this article re the benefits of attending a support group