What Is Trigeminal Neuralgia?

The neuralgia of the trigeminal nerve is a nerve disorder that causes a stabbing or electric – shock-type pain in parts of the face. Your pain comes from the trigeminal nerve that carries touch sensations and pain to your brain from your face, eyes, sinuses, and mouth. This disease typically affects adults, although it can affect anyone. Trigeminal neuralgia, or tic pain, is a devastating facial pain syndrome suffered by millions of Americans. The symptoms characterize trigeminal neuralgia: intense facial pain, primarily unilateral, lasting for two minutes. The pains of this pathology are among the most excruciating pain of all known.

Many affected patients have come to classify them as fulminant or as suffering an electric shock. Pain episodes can be recurrent and repetitive. Their appearance is spontaneous without any trigger that can be identifiable. Sometimes it can appear in such everyday actions as rubbing the cheeks or forehead, speaking, and laughing. If you are suffering from pain, consult experienced doctors to get trigeminal neuralgia treatment. To make a correct diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia, different tests can be performed. First, the specialist may decide to do a magnetic resonance tomography (MRI) of the head. The reason for the performance of the test is that the trigeminal is born in a lower area of ​​the brain. It extends through the skull with time. In this article, we have enlisted five important things about trigeminal neuralgia you should know. Have a look!

 

1- Where Does the Name Come from?

Two types of trigeminal neuralgia can be experienced: type 1 and type 2.

  • Trigeminal neuralgia type 1 (TN1) is characterized by sharp pain (also called lancinating), which occurs in sudden bursts. 
  • Trigeminal neuralgia type 2 (TN2) is characterized by constant pain.

Characteristically, in TN1, the pain is not constant; it comes and goes and can be activated by touching the skin. It is not uncommon for a person with TN1 to stop combing or brushing their teeth. It is better to consult experienced doctors to get trigeminal neuralgia treatment to get rid of pain.

 

2- What Causes Trigeminal Neuralgia?

The most common cause in most cases is pathological contact between the nerve and a blood vessel. The most frequent appearance of trigeminal neuralgia is blood arteries located next to the nerve that is pressed. Most of the time, the arteries become numb and inflamed due to arteriosclerosis. The enlargement can penetrate the isolated layers normally found between nerves and blood vessels, thus affecting the nerve and may even cause damage.  The cause of trigeminal neuralgia is called symptomatic trigeminal neuralgia. It can be found in other diseases. These include, on the one hand, demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis. The cause that causes the typical pains in trigeminal neuralgia is damage to the sheath of the nerve in the area of ​​the entrance to the nerve root. The pests can also appear in both parts of the face in young people affected by this pathology.

 

3- Does Facial Pain After Surgery or Injury Mean I Have Trigeminal Neuralgia?

The constant burning pain after trigeminal nerve injury is known as “differentiation” syndrome. Most of the time, there is some associated facial numbness, and the numb area has a constant burning pain. This type of severe pain does not respond to the usual treatments for trigeminal neuralgia. These procedures often make it worse. It is better to consult experienced doctors to get trigeminal neuralgia treatment to get rid of the pain. Differentiation pain may respond to medications, stimulating electrodes, or, in rare cases, to a surgery called a lesion of the nucleus caudal is DREZ (dorsal root entry zone).

 

4- What Are the Surgical Trigeminal Neuralgia Treatment?

The first type of surgery is called microvascular decompression (MVD). In an MVD, surgeons identify the vessel compressing the trigeminal nerve and place some protection between the vessel and the nerve. Injury procedures are less invasive but have risks and are associated with some facial numbness. The trigeminal neuralgia treatment that is usually applied to trigeminal neuralgia is medical. Several drugs can be used, leaving surgery for cases that do not respond to drug trigeminal neuralgia treatment or creating side effects that put the patient at risk. The medications used during trigeminal neuralgia serve to prevent, in no case so that the pains from stopping. In this case, analgesics are usually ineffective when used in trigeminal neuralgia because the drug’s effect begins half an hour after taking it. The most severe attack of pain has already stopped.

 

5- Can it be prevented?

No specific prevention for trigeminal neuralgia can be done. But if the nerve pains last for a certain time. The attacks’ intensity can be alleviated with the right trigeminal neuralgia treatments. At times the attacks can be avoided altogether. On the other hand, risk factors can be prevented. For example, atherosclerosis, which can lead to trigeminal neuralgia. It can be prevented through a healthy lifestyle, eating a healthy balanced diet, and practicing physical exercise.

Hope this article is helpful to know the important things about trigeminal neuralgia and effective trigeminal neuralgia treatments.