Surgical Options Hit Facial Pain Where it Hurts

On Mother's Day, Betty Berlin got an unwelcome present-excruciating facial pain, courtesy of trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Home alone, Berlin, 81, danced and screamed for about 15 minutes, she recalls, until the attack subsided.

Classic TN like Berlin's is characterized by unpredictable pain to areas served by the trigeminal nerve-the upper, middle and lower face. Pain keeps to one side during any single attack. Patients liken TN pain to being struck with a 220-volt electrical wire for seconds to minutes at a time, making their previous heart attacks or kidney stones a walk in the park.

For Berlin and most patients, antiseizure drugs like carbamazepine, while effective at first, eventually aren't enough. "The peaks [of pain] only get higher, and the valleys aren't as low and don't last as long," says Carol James, P.A.., longtime physician assistant with neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson, M.D.

Fortunately, Hopkins has surgical options to give patients with classic TN an excellent chance at durable pain relief.   more>>>