What Causes Trigeminal Neuralgia?
Generally the main cause of Trigeminal Neuralgia is a blood vessel that somehow presses on the nerve near the stem of the brain. Blood vessels change over time and this can often result in a vessel rubbing against the trigeminal nerve root. The constant rubbing as a result of your heart beating will eventually wear away the insulating membrane of the brain, this will result in the irritation of the nerve.
Symptoms can be brought on when a person is brushing the teeth, chewing, speaking, putting on makeup, touching the face, swallowing, cold winds, feeling a slight breeze or touching a specific trigger spot.
Trigeminal neuralgia is often considered one of the most painful conditions seen in medicine.
What Are the Symptoms of Trigeminal Neuralgia?
There are some common symptoms of Trigeminal Neuralgia. Generally the person who suffers from this condition usually experiences a severe and sudden electric shock like pain. It also can be a deep stabbing pain that lasts for many seconds up to a couple of minutes. These variations of pain can be felt all around the face, especially around the nose, the eyes, lips, forehead and scalp.
Usually, the pain from Trigeminal Neuralgia can be felt on one side of the jaw or cheek. However there are some people that experience pain at different times on both sides. The attacks of pain can be repeated one after the other. Often the pain attacks can come and go throughout the day and last for days, weeks, or months at a time. Sometimes the attacks can disappear for months and years.
Overview of The Trigeminal Neuralgia Symptoms
The attacks are said to feel like stabbing electric shocks or shooting pain that becomes intractable.
People who have experienced severe trigeminal neuralgia often described the pain as feeling like lightning or electric-shock, like shooting pain or jabbing.
Attacks can affect one side of the face at a time. It is known to last several seconds or longer, and repeats up to hundreds of times throughout the day.
The pain also tends to occur in cycles with complete remissions lasting months or even years.
Pain attacks are known to worsen over time.
Many patients who suffer from this condition often see pain develop in one branch and then over the years it will travel through the other nerve branches.
Some people have mild, bouts of pain, while other people will have frequent, severe, electric-shock-like pain.
The condition tends to come and go. You may experience attacks of pain off and on all day, or even for days or weeks at a time.
Remission is less common the longer you have trigeminal neuralgia.
Atypical Neuralgia Symptoms
There is a variation of trigeminal neuralgia called atypical trigeminal neuralgia. For people who suffer from atypical trigeminal neuralgia they often experience a continuous and severe pain that is similar to a migraine headache with stabbing pains. In some cases the stabbing feeling may not be present and it would feel like a burning or prickling rather than a shock. Some patients often experience pain that is combination of migraine headache pain, shock sensations and burning.