Do you have episodes of sudden shock like pain or extreme burning face pain or numbness & tingling on one side of your face? Does this facial pain come and go for a couple of days, then seem to stop for awhile? If so, you have suggestive symptoms of trigeminal neuralgia, aka tic douloureux.
Trigeminal neuralgia pain symptoms happen in a flare and remission pattern. Typically, facial pain lasts anywhere from a few seconds to minutes. Then it’ll ease up briefly only to recur again. Usually, these cycles of facial pain will stop for a period of time. And over time, these incidences of face pain tend to flare up more often, with shorter remissions.
Often, trigeminal neuralgia caused face pain is triggered by some sort of facial vibration or cheek contact, like:
- eating
- smiling
- shaving
- drinking
- chewing
- face washing
- teeth brushing
- wind on your face
- makeup application
You might be given a warning that a trigeminal neuralgia symptom attack is about to occur because of some facial numbness or tingling.
The cause for your intermittent pain is the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for communicating facial sensations to your brain. Trigeminal neuralgia causes face nerve pain symptoms because your trigeminal nerve is either pinched or damaged. A couple associative health conditions that could cause this neuralgia include:
- a tumor
- adjacent blood vessel wears away myelin
- multiple sclerosis caused myelin damage
However, the cause of your nerve damage may never be known.
Although trigeminal neuralgia health condition is not fatal, the mere intensity of your pain or even fear of it may drastically alter your life. Therefore, finding the right treatment for your facial pain symptoms is vital.
There are many different ways to treat the trigeminal nerve and some of the various trigeminal neuralgia face pain treatments involve:
- biofeedback
- acupuncture
- anesthetic injection
- electrical nerve stimulation
- surgical destruction of nerve
- vitamin & nutritional therapy
- drugs ~ anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antispasmodic
You will probably need to try different treatments, including a combination, before discovering what works best on your symptoms. And typically, analgesics or opioids won’t treat that sharp facial pain.
Trigeminal neuralgia most often occurs in women over 50 with a family history of the health condition.
