Trigeminal Neuralgia
Trigeminal Neuralgia
Trigeminal Neuralgia
Read on to find out more about Trigeminal Neuralgia, Relevant Blog Posts and Videos which may help solve the puzzle.
Read on to find out more about Trigeminal Neuralgia, Relevant Blog Posts and Videos which may help solve the puzzle.
Sharp, Excruciating Pain in your Face and Jaw.
If you have this pain, then you are very likely to be feeling miserable. However, there are new discoveries in treating Trigeminal Neuralgia which give sufferers real hope for answers.
According to the Brain Foundation of Australia, Trigeminal Neuralgia is a condition which is characterised by sudden, severe, electric shock or stabbing like pain felt in one side of the jaw or teeth. This pain may also radiate into the eye or the head as these areas are also innervated by the Trigeminal Nerve.
What do Trigeminal Neuralgia sufferers frequently report to us?
Patients living with Trigeminal Neuralgia report to us in very vivid detail what the awful sensations feel like. For some, it feels like that “they want to rip their tooth out” or that “it feels like an ice pick going into my face and eye”. For others they are unable to touch their face, eat, chew, clean their teeth or blow their nose without getting a sharp, stabbing, electrical pain in their face, nose and lip.
Patients also commonly report that at times, their neck can be sore or stiff on the same side, or a different “weaker” pain may persist even between attacks.
The onset of such pains can be because of former dental or orthodontic work, jaw injury, car accident or whiplash injury, or perhaps no cause at all. In summary - the pain is arguably the worst pain anyone can have.
Quite commonly patients are left frustrated and confused with a lack of answers about how and why this pain could be happening, or it is very difficult to find someone who understands the condition, given how rare it is. At times, strong medication is given with varying results. What is important is that the cause of the pain is diagnosed correctly.
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So what could really be happening?
A common fact that is overlooked by health professionals is that the signals that comes from your Trigeminal Nerve, when it gets into your brain, go to the same place as the signals from the top of your neck (and a couple of other areas as well that are less relevant to TN). This nerve centre takes in signals from your jaw, face and teeth as well. What this means, is that if there is an issue with the top of your neck, then it is entirely possible that your brain can get it totally wrong, and assign the problem to your face.
This causes pain in the face, when there is nothing wrong with the face nerves at all. It actually happens quite commonly in your body. People living with sciatic nerve pain, have pain in their leg or foot, but the issue is in the lower back. People living with arm pain after a Whiplash injury, actually have an issue with the lower neck.
It is becoming more common to scan the face and cheek area to see if there is an issue with the Trigeminal Nerve itself - if a blood vessel is wrapped around the nerve, or if there is nerve damage. This can give good information about the nerve's structure, but may not actually be relevant to the symptoms.
In people with Trigeminal Neuralgia, normal information passing through nerve centre is interpreted by your brain as abnormal, causing symptoms. At times only a small amount of information can be responsible for really severe symptoms, such as the symptoms you get with Trigeminal Neuralgia.
We have created a special document especially for patients with Trigeminal Neuralgia, because it is just so terrible. You can access by clicking the button below.
Download our Free Trigeminal Neuralgia E-Book.Understand more about your condition.
How do we Assess and Treat Trigeminal Neuralgia?
On day one, we are very thorough in how we assess things. This is to ensure that when we provide advice, we have the best chance of getting a good result for you. If we can't help you, we will say so, and send you onto someone who can.
In the assessment, we will be:
- Asking you to explain what your symptoms are, when you get them, how often you get them, and how they are affecting things
- Thoroughly assessing your Upper Neck and Jaw for any joint stiffness and muscle tightness. A really good tell for us that your symptoms are coming from your neck is the ability to replicate the familiar symptoms, and have them resolve as we hold the pressure of our thumb on your joint. If this happens - then we are in business and it is extremely likely we can help - however this is actually quite uncommon in patients living with Trigeminal Neuralgia. If the pain is not replicated - not to worry - treatment is still likely to have an effect if your neck is stiff and tight to the touch on the same side as your facial symptoms.
- Assessing any other relevant joints, muscles, discs, nerves or other factors to establish if we are able to help out.
We will then work together with you to produce the best possible plan, based on the best available evidence, our clinical experience and your own commitment to change. The best results are achieved by those that follow our suggested plan, which can be altered or changed based on how you are responding to treatment.
What's important, is that we know what we are looking for. On the first day, we will be able to tell you if your neck is the missing piece of your Trigeminal Neuralgia puzzle.
What are the next steps?
The best thing to do to establish if we are able to help is to talk to us directly, either in a ten minute phone consultation or an In-Room Assessment Consultation, so that you can be confident that this is the right treatment for you. We understand that you may have tried many different types of treatment, and we do not want to waste your precious time and money by offering a solution that has already been tried and failed.
Click on the buttons below to get started, make contact with us via our Contact Form, or call us directly on 07 3392 4699 to take the first steps.