Jenny lauper

Trigeminal Neuralgia-About the Facial Nerve Pain

Trigeminal Neuralgia is one medical condition, which causes chronic severe pain in parts of your face. It generally affects people more than 50 years of age. Treatment with drugs called the carbamazepine generally works well to stop the pains. Surgery is one choice if medicine does not function, or if the side effects from medicine are a problem.

Trigeminal neuralgia is quite an uncommon disease. More than 10 people out of 100,000 develop it every year. It affects the older people and it generally begins in your 60s and 70s. It is rare in the younger adults. On the other hand, women are usually affected than the men.

Trigeminal nerve:

Trigeminal nerve, also known as the fifth cranial nerve is one of the major nerves of your face. There is one on either side. It comes through the skull from the brain in front of the ear. It is called the ‘trigeminal’ as it tears into the 3 main branches. Now every branch divides into several smaller nerves. The nerves from Branch 1 lead to the areas around your eye, scalp and the forehead. On the other hand, the nerves from the Branch 2 go to the area around your cheeks. The nerves from Branch 3 go to area around jaw. The branches of trigeminal nerve take the sensation of pain and touch to the brain from mouth, teeth and face. Trigeminal nerve even controls muscles used in the chewing and in the production of tears and saliva.

You will commonly feel the pain in your maxillary nerve. This nerve runs along the check bone, the upper lip, nose and your upper teeth. The next most commonly area is mandibular nerve which affects your lower lip, jaw and lower cheeks. In most cases, about 97 percent of the pain is found to be restricted to one side of the face.

Causes

About 9 out of the 10 causes in Trigeminal Neuralgia are caused by the pressing of blood vessel on the root of nerve where the nerve comes out from brain through the skull. But, it’s well known why the blood vessel must begin to press on trigeminal nerve the later life. It is quite rare to find TN as an indication of any other condition. For instance, TN can develop as an outcome of the multiple sclerosis, tumor or abnormality of the skull base. In certain cases, the cause is not known.

People diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia happen to be plagued by the irregular yet severe pain which interferes with the regular activities such as sleep and eating. They tend to live in the fear of the irregular painful attacks that leads to under eating and sleep deprivation as well. The condition may lead to depression, irritability, severe anticipatory anxiety, and the life threatening malnutrition.

The trigeminal neuralgia causes the facial pain. The pain that comes and goes, almost feel like bursts of some stabbing, sharp, shocks. This pain may last from few seconds to few minutes. Many people call the trigeminal neuralgia as ‘tic douloureux’ due to the characteristic muscle spasm which accompanies this pain.

For more information about trigeminal neuralgia causes and trigeminal neuralgia treatment visit our website.

Article Tags: Trigeminal Neuralgia, Nerves From, Trigeminal Nerve

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