Trigeminal neuralgia is a mainly a chronic pain condition that usually affects the trigeminal nerve which carries sensation from face to the brain. Trigeminal neuralgia is a kind of neuropathic pain associated with nerve injury or nerve lesions.Trigeminal neuralgia can occur with a variety of conditions. The pain in this syndrome is generally triggered, for example by light touch and can described as stabbing, shooting, excruciating or burning.
Trigeminal neuralgia is a chronic pain condition that affects the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from your face to your brain. If you have trigeminal neuralgia, even mild stimulation of your face — such as from brushing your teeth or putting on makeup — may trigger a jolt of excruciating pain. In trigeminal neuralgia, also called tic douloureux, the trigeminal nerve's function is disrupted. Usually, the problem is contact between a normal blood vessel — in this case, an artery or a vein — and the trigeminal nerve at the base of your brain. This contact puts pressure on the nerve and causes it to malfunction
Patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia (TN) were categorised into 3 subtypes (n = 225). Group 1 (n = 155, 68.9%) had TN without concomitant pain, group 2 (n = 32, 14.2%) had TN with intermittent concomitant pain, and group 3 (n = 39, 16.9%) had TN with autonomic symptoms. We tested 2 hypotheses: that different pain profiles would be associated with the different groups; that the severe pain associated with TN would impact negatively on activities of daily living and thereby result in disability as defined by the World Health Organisation. A different pain profile was found across the groups. We obtained unequivocal evidence that TN causes disability with up to 45% of patients being absent from usual daily activities 15 days or more in the past 6 months. On the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, 35.7% patients had mild-to-severe depression and over 50% were anxious. The Pain Catastrophizing Scale showed that 78% of patients had considerable negative thoughts with scores >20 and a mean score of 36.4. Prior to referral, only 54% had been prescribed carbamazepine while opioids had been prescribed in 14.6% of the patients. Prior to referral, over 80% had already been to 1 specialist centre which had not provided appropriate management. Patients with TN report varied characteristics but all result in some degree of psychosocial disability especially before adequate therapy is attained.