Trigeminal Neuralgia

Trigeminal neuralgia is a terribly painful medical condition. It’s a rare illness that irritates one of the two trigeminal nerves that give you feeling on all parts of your face. It delivers sudden and excruciating pain to different parts of your face, although only on one side. To treat it, you need the guidance of a headache specialist like Dr. Amr Hosny at the Advanced Headache Center in Manhattan and Bergen County, NJ. Dr. Hosny finds the cause of your pain, and his trigeminal neuralgia treatment addresses it to leave you pain-free. Don’t let this condition go unchecked, as it gets worse the longer it goes. Call the top headache center in NYC and northern NJ today.

What Is Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Trigeminal neuralgia is sudden, acute, shooting pain that feels like a jolt of electricity delivered to your forehead, eyes, cheeks, gums, jaw, or teeth. It’s a facial nerve disorder accompanied by searing pain on one side of the lower parts of your face. The short, unpredictable pain attacks can last seconds or continue for up to two long minutes. The pain from this condition is more debilitating than that from a powerful migraine or thunderclap headache, two of the more painful headache types.

As a secondary headache, this condition involves pain caused by an underlying medical issue. The pain from trigeminal neuralgia stems from one of the two trigeminal cranial nerves that provide feeling for each side of your face. This pain concentrates on three areas:

1. This pain hits the lower part of your face: your jaw, lower teeth, lower gums, and lower lip.
2. This pain attacks the upper part of your face: your forehead, eyes, and bridge of your nose.
3. This pain strikes the middle of your face: your lower eyelid, cheek, upper gums and lip, upper teeth, and side of your nose.

What Should I Do About Trigeminal Neuralgia?

It’s a rare condition; only about 150,000 people in the country suffer from trigeminal neuralgia, with women and people over 50 years more at risk. Trigeminal neuralgia is a chronic condition that gets worse with time. For this reason, it will eventually degrade the quality of your life if you don’t have it treated.

Dr. Amr Hosny is a pain management specialist skilled in treating all kinds of headaches. He wastes no time finding the correct diagnosis. Then he uses a multimodal approach to deliver effective trigeminal neuralgia treatment. Visit one of the eight locations of his practice, the Advanced Headache Center, in:

• New York City: Midtown Manhattan, the Financial District or Union Square
• Bergen County, New Jersey: Paramus, Riverdale, Englewood Cliffs, East Brunswick or Cranford

What Are the Symptoms of Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Any pain that affects your daily activities requires an immediate diagnosis as the first step to treatment. When you recognize the symptoms of trigeminal neuralgia, you’ll seek treatment early and be able to improve your quality of life. The symptoms associated with trigeminal neuralgia include:

• Episodes of searing, shooting or jabbing pain in your cheek or jaw
• A period of relief between the severe bouts of pain
• A wide variety of triggers for the pain, including shaving, moving your tongue in your mouth, applying makeup, brushing, eating, drinking, or talking
• Pain spasms lasting a few seconds or a few minutes
• Anxiety when you think of the pain recurring
• Pain that attacks a range of areas across your face and head, including your eyes, lips, gums, forehead, teeth, jaw, and cheeks
• Pain focused on one spot that later spreads
• Pain only on one side of your face
• A tingling sensation on your face before the pain attack

It’s easy to mistake this facial pain as a dental issue or another medical problem, such as a spinal headache or a status migrainosus. That’s why you need the help of a specialized headache physician. If you suffer bouts of searing pain on your lower face and these attacks last less than two minutes, visit Dr. Hosny for a trigeminal neuralgia diagnosis.

What Causes or Triggers Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Some episodes of trigeminal neuralgia are spontaneous, but some situations irritate the root of a trigeminal nerve on one side of your head. When blood vessels in this area press on the nerve, you feel pain as a result. Common causes of such nerve irritation include:

• A tumor pressing on the nerve
• Multiple sclerosis (MS)
• An injury to the trigeminal nerve itself, which is rare since the nerve is inside your skull
• A family history of trigeminal neuralgia

Dr. Hosny carries out extensive diagnostic tests at the Advanced Headache Center in NYC or NJ using the latest medical equipment. He reviews your medical and family history to identify the possible cause of your severe facial pain. A correct diagnosis enables the most appropriate treatment based on the cause.

Is There Treatment for Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Once he has a correct diagnosis, Dr. Hosny develops a personalized treatment plan for you. Trigeminal neuralgia treatment is more effective because it addresses the specific underlying medical issues. The treatment options your Harvard-trained pain management physician may recommend for trigeminal neuralgia include:

• Trigeminal neuralgia medications, such as anticonvulsant medicine, to control seizures
• Trigeminal nerve blocks
• Surgery to stop the nerve irritation by blood vessels
• Rhizotomy
• Acupuncture

Search for a headache center near me and then contact Dr. Hosny to schedule an initial consultation. Get an accurate diagnosis and complete trigeminal neuralgia treatment at NYC’s and northern NJ’s best headache center. Stop your pain today.