Trigeminal Neuralgia Treatment

Jaw pain is a condition that affects the muscles of jaw and hence you may feel difficulty in eating and speaking. It may be due to an abnormality or injury to the joint of your jaw.  Here are some of the causes of jaw pain:

• Temporomandibular joint and muscle disorder (TMD)
• Cluster headaches
• Sinus problems
• Tooth pain
• Trigeminal neuralgia
• Heart attack

What is Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Trigeminal neuralgia is a condition in which a sensation carrying nerve of the face is affected. These patients experience severe pain on one of the side of the face. It is usually unilateral, that is affecting one side of the face, but it could be bilateral as well.

Even mild stimulation of the face like washing the face, blow of AC air, brushing teeth may trigger severe pain.

Pain may occur over the jaw (mandibular neuralgia), in the middle of the face (maxillary neuralgia), or maybe around and above the eye (ophthalmic neuralgia). It can in fact present as a combination of the above patterns.

Causes:

• Presence of blood vessels around the trigeminal ganglion.
• Tumour around the trigeminal ganglion
• Idiopathic

Diagnosis:

MRI of the brain with trigeminal sequence usually helps in the diagnosis

Treatment:

Treatment consist of medication, certain home remedies, interventional techniques and sometimes is surgical.

1. Home Remedies:

• Apply moist heat or ice packs
• Over-the-counter pain relievers
• Massage the affected joint
• Mouthguard: It is a plastic dental protector worn on your upper or lower teeth that’s custom-fitted for your mouth. Wearing this at bedtime can help stop you from unconsciously grinding your teeth.

If jaw pain doesn’t go away by the above remedies, you must see a pain specialist near you. He may recommend you following treatment options.

2. Medical Treatment:

Oral medication: Muscle relaxants, nerve pain medicines

Botox Injections:

 These injections are given in jaw muscles. It keeps jaw muscles from clenching, possibly helping to relieve jaw pain due to TMD. It’s effect remains for several months. After that re-injection may required.

Interventional Techniques:

Radio frequency ablation of the trigeminal ganglion is preferred when there are no blood vessels in close vicinity of the trigeminal ganglion, when patient is not tolerating drugs, when the patient is not willing to undergo surgery, and if the pain persists even after a surgery.

Usually this is a daycare procedure in which using a CT scan machine or x-ray machine, the injection is given at the affected trigeminal nerve branch and radio frequency ablation is done.

3. Surgical Treatment:

• Gamma knife therapy
• microvascular decompression
• Jaw surgery is recommended only when pain is severe and other treatments don’t work.

Painex & Trigeminal Neuralgia:

Painex is one-stop solution for your jaw pain or trigeminal neuralgia treatment in Pune. If you have any difficulty in eating or speaking, visit our pain specialists without any hesitation. They are well trained and can provide you the best solution for your jaw pain. Our treatment for trigeminal nerve pain includes medication and interventional techniques. The interventional procedures are performed under X-ray or CT guidance by our highly specialised pain specialist doctors. Contact now and get consultation from our experts.