Your doctor may suggest a tricyclic antidepressant to manage your symptoms.You also may take muscle relaxants - alone or along with anticonvulsants.To keep the nerves from reacting to irritation, you may take anticonvulsant medications.Medication : Typical pain medications don’t work well for people with trigeminal neuralgia, but your doctor may prescribe different types of drugs: Treatment for this condition may include medication and surgery. They can test your reflexes to figure out whether a nerve is compressed.Īn imaging test such as an MRI can show if a tumor or multiple sclerosis is an underlying cause of your problem. You may also have a neurological exam, in which your doctor touches various parts of your face. If you have facial pain - especially sensations that keep coming back or don’t respond to over-the-counter pain relievers - make an appointment with your doctor.īe ready to tell your doctor about how your pain first appeared, how often you feel it, and what seems to trigger it.Įxpect your doctor to ask lots of questions about your condition. It can be a progressive disease, though, meaning that it gets worse over time. It may also be linked to high blood pressure.Īlthough the pain can be intense, the condition is not life-threatening.The disorder may run in families, perhaps because of how blood vessels are formed in the brain.The disease is more common in people older than 50.Women are more likely than men to get trigeminal neuralgia.Some people are more likely to get trigeminal neuralgia than others:.Your trigeminal nerve can also be injured - perhaps by surgery, an accident, or a stroke. Sometimes a tumor or a tangle of arteries presses on the nerve. You might have a blood vessel pressing on the nerve, damaging the protective coating around it, which is called the myelin sheath.Ĭertain diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, also can injure the myelin sheath. This starts with irritation of the trigeminal nerve. Trigeminal Neuralgia Causes and Risk Factors Eating or drinking, especially hot or cold foods or drinks.Some people with this condition also have anxiety because they are uncertain when the pain will return.Īny number of things may cause trigeminal neuralgia pain, such as: After an attack, your face may twitch uncontrollably.The eyes and forehead are affected less often. You feel the pain mostly in your cheek, jaw, teeth, gums, and lips.Episodes happen more often over time, and the pain can worsen.Pain may affect just one part of your face or spread to a wider area.Pain usually affects only one side of the face.These pain-free periods are known as remission. The attacks happen several times a day or a week, followed by periods during which you have none at all.Episodes last a few seconds to several minutes.You may feel it coming on, as burning or achiness, before it becomes very painful.Even a light breeze against your face might set off your pain. Pain triggered by things such as brushing your teeth, washing your face, shaving, or putting on makeup.Brief periods of stabbing or shooting pain.If your pain is more of an aching, burning sensation, you might have the atypical form.Ĭommon symptoms of trigeminal neuralgia may include: Some people with this condition start out thinking they have an abscessed tooth and go to a dentist.įor people who have what’s called “atypical” trigeminal neuralgia, known as type 2, the pain is usually less intense, but constant.ĭoctors consider sudden and intense bouts of pain to be signs of “classic” trigeminal neuralgia. You may feel as though your pain came out of nowhere. When that happens, it’s called bilateral trigeminal neuralgia. Usually, you’ll feel pain on only one side of your face. ![]() The disorder can affect any of the three nerve branches, meaning you could feel pain from your forehead to your jaw. It runs your jaw, lower lip, lower gum, and some muscles you use for chewing. This affects your lower eyelid, cheek, nostril, upper lip, and upper gum. It controls your eye, upper eyelid, and forehead. One nerve runs down each side of your head.Įach trigeminal nerve splits into three branches, controlling the feeling for different parts of your face. The trigeminal nerves are among these pairs, and they let you feel sensations in your face. In your head, you have 12 pairs of what are called cranial nerves. To learn about trigeminal neuralgia, it helps to know a little about how the affected nerves are laid out. People who have this condition say the pain might feel like an electric shock, and it can sometimes be intense.ĭoctors have treatments that can help, including medicine and surgery. You might also hear it called “tic douloureux.” Trigeminal neuralgia is an ongoing pain condition that affects certain nerves in your face.
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