Trigeminal Neuralgia

Neuralgia refers to severe, shooting pain that occurs due to a damaged or irritated nerve. Neuralgia can affect any part of the body, causing mild to severe pain. Severe neuralgia can interfere with a person’s ability to perform everyday tasks and may impact their quality of life. Neuralgia has many possible causes, including:

• infections, such as singles, Lyme disease, or HIV
• pressure on nerves from bones, blood vessels, or tumors
• other medical conditions, such as kidney disease or diabetes
• aging.

Symptoms:

• Episodes of severe, shooting or jabbing pain that may feel like an electric shock.
• Spontaneous attacks of pain or attacks triggered by things such as touching the face, chewing, speaking or brushing teeth.
• Bouts of pain lasting from a few seconds to several minutes.
• Episodes of several attacks lasting days, weeks, months or longer — some people have periods when they experience no pain.
• Pain in areas supplied by the trigeminal nerve, including the cheek, jaw, teeth, gums, lips, or less often the eye and forehead.
• Pain affecting one side of the face at a time, though may rarely affect both sides of the face.
• Pain focused in one spot or spread in a wider pattern.
• Attacks that become more frequent and intense over time.