Trigeminal neuralgia is believed to be one of the most excruciating pains known to humanity. Characterized by a sudden attack of excruciating facial pain, it often resembles an electric shock. An attack can last for up to two minutes, and sufferers are often incapacitated for the duration.
Currently, there are no known cures for trigeminal neuralgia. However, there are a number of treatment options. Unfortunately, many of these cause unpleasant side effects.
Today, there is an exciting technique called Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, a minimally invasive trigeminal neuralgia treatment option.
Read on, and learn about the Gamma Knife and how it brings about pain relief.
1. What Is Trigeminal Neuralgia?
The trigeminal nerve is the fifth cranial nerve. This nerve sends pain signals, touch, and temperature sensations from the face to the brain.
Trigeminal Neuralgia is pain along that nerve. Ninety-five percent of the time, the pain results from pressure on the nerve.
Before treating trigeminal neuralgia, your doctor will examine you. They will touch different areas on the side of the face to establish where you are experiencing pain. This will also allow your doctor to figure out which branches of the trigeminal nerve are affected.
After taking your history, asking you questions and doing the examination, they are likely to order an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). This type of scan will look for possible reasons for pressure on the nerve.
2. What Is the Gamma Knife?
Firstly, it is not a knife. Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, aka stereotactic radiosurgery, makes use of computer imaging. About 200 tiny beams of radiation focus on the point where the trigeminal nerve enters the brain stem.
It has a high rate of success in eliminating pain from classic trigeminal neuralgia. Gamma Knife works over a period of days or weeks, and if the pain recurs, you will be able to have the procedure repeated if necessary.
Gamma Knife Radiosurgery has a low risk of loss of sensation to parts of the face. Around eighty percent of patients experience a significant amount of pain relief. Others have a complete absence of pain.
Now let’s look at the other treatment options for trigeminal neuralgia and do a comparison.
3. Medical Treatment
The first option your medical team will explore is the use of drugs. The most common and effective medications are anticonvulsants or muscle relaxants. These sometimes bring severe side effects which may rule them out in certain situations. Botox is another option. It is occasionally used to reduce pain, but this requires further research, so it is not widely used.
4. Microvascular Decompression (MVD) Surgery
This is a form of microsurgery, which requires an incision. On average, patients are in the hospital for about two to three days.
You may be able to return to normal activities in about three weeks. Your surgeon, however, will probably advise you to stay away from strenuous activity for longer.
In the case of Gamma Knife, you will need far less recovery time.
5. Balloon Compression
In this procedure, a balloon is inflated inside the skull. It compresses part of the nerve carrying pain signals to the brain. This takes place in an operating theater under a local anesthetic.
Although it only takes about thirty minutes, you are likely to remain in the hospital overnight for observation.
There is no incision, but you still have the anesthetic and hospital stay to contend with.
6. Radiofrequency Lesioning
This procedure, aka radiofrequency rhizotomy, provides immediate pain relief in many patients who cannot undergo a Gamma Knife or MVD procedure. It causes damage to the trigeminal nerve and stops the transmission of pain. The surgeon may also give you glycerol injections into the relevant area to numb the nerve and reduce the pain.
You may, however, experience more facial numbness than the other procedures. Fifty percent of patients will also experience pain recurrence within five years post-surgery.
7. Invasiveness
The MVD procedure is often considered the “most invasive” due to the fact that it requires general anesthesia, a skin incision and removal of a small part of the skull. That said, MVD surgery is often the best and most durable treatment option for younger patients.
Rhixotomy procedures are minimally invasive and can be an excellent alternative to medications in a select group of patients.
Gamma Knife Radiosurgery is the “least invasive” in that no needles pass into the skull and no skin incision is made. With the Gamma Knife procedure, the precise focus of the radiation means that it does not do as much damage to surrounding tissue as other radiation therapy. Nor does it have the risks involved in traditional surgery.
8. Stabilizing the Head
If you decide to go with Gamma Knife, your surgeon needs to be sure you will not move during the procedure. Traditionally, a “head frame” is required to make sure that, while the Gamma Knife is on, a patient’s head cannot shift or rotate. This head frame is what makes Gamma Knife so accurate and reliable. Although other radiosurgery platforms use facemasks as an alternative to the head frame, the most reliable data for successful outcomes is based on treatments using the head frame for stabilization.
9. Recovery
Depending on the type of procedure selected, the post-procedure recovery varies. For MVD, the recovery is the longest. For rhizotomy procedures, the recovery is often quick and for Gamma Knife, patients have little to no downtime at all.
10. Outcomes
Believe it or not, Gamma Knife Radiosurgery has been around since the late 1960’s! Today, the computers that run the Gamma Knife are faster, so the treatment time is often less than an hour, but the foundation that Gamma Knife is built upon has been the same for >50 years. No other platform can say that.
With Gamma Knife, you can rest assured that the data and the outcomes for safety and pain relief are very well established – no guess work.
Consider These Amazing Facts
If you are struggling with this dreadful affliction and wish to avoid invasive surgery, don’t delay! Learn more by visiting our site. There you will find out more about this Trigeminal Neuralgia Breakthrough Treatment!
Find out if gamma knife treatment is right for you! Call our office or fill out an online form to request a consultation.
