New procedure helping to relieve pain from trigeminal neuralgia

Imagine a pain in your face that is so intense you can’t talk, eat or move. It’s called trigeminal neuralgia, and up to 15,000 people a year are diagnosed with it.

When medications don’t work, there’s a new procedure that is helping to relieve the pain.

“It was really painful. It would send me into attacks. They would last like 15 seconds,” said Marilyn Gray.

Gray, a grandmother of 12, lived day and night with excruciating pain in her face.

“I remember one summer, I had rubbed the skin off my face,” she said.

Described as a lightning bolt to both sides of her cheeks, anything would trigger her trigeminal neuralgia, including brushing her teeth, eating and applying makeup.

Nobody knows why some get it, and some don’t.

“We can point to a blood vessel that’s usually compressing or touching the top or side of the trigeminal nerve, but what’s interesting is that almost everyone has a blood vessel touching the trigeminal nerve as it leaves the brainstem,” said Neurosurgeon Jon McIver.

McIver said there are several ways to treat it, first, medication, then radiation but the effects last only 18 months. The most permanent procedure is microvascular decompression.

“Where a surgeon makes a window in the bone, behind the ear on the side of the pain, and then places what looks like a very small pillow between the nerve and the blood vessel, that is usually coursing over the top of the nerve,” McIver said.

Radiation didn’t work for Gray, so now, she’s planning to try this new procedure and hoping it gives her a permanent fix.

This condition is more common in women and people over 50. Because it occurs near the jawline, it’s most often misdiagnosed as pain from a bad tooth or TMJ.