For many years, atypical facial pain symptoms were frequently chalked up to “a nervous disposition,” assumed to be stemming from psychological origins. While there are some connections between stress and emotional trauma and pain, a better understanding of nerve function has allowed doctors and surgeons to provide more effective treatments for facial pain issues. If you’re suffering from atypical facial pain, you now have more choices than ever for receiving quality care.
What Is Atypical Facial Pain and What Causes It?
Atypical facial pain symptoms include sensations often described as burning, pulsing, crushing, throbbing, itching, pins-and-needles tingling, aching and pulling. The condition can manifest in any part of the face, but the most common area is around the jaw and sides of the face. It can be debilitating in some cases, causing sufferers to miss out on their daily lives.
Interestingly, atypical facial pain is more common amongst women than men, and often strikes those between the ages of 30 and 50. The causes of atypical facial pain are varied — it can be caused by compression of a facial nerve, such as in the case of trigeminal neuralgia, or stem from other causes such as temporomandibular joint dysfunction. Other times, it can simply be idiopathic, meaning there is no obvious cause.
What Are the Atypical Facial Pain Treatment Options?
If you’ve been living with atypical facial pain and are looking for treatment, you have several choices. There are numerous nonsurgical and surgical options for addressing atypical facial pain symptoms.
Nonsurgical Treatments
- Medication: The first line of defense against atypical facial pain is medication. While it isn’t effective in every case, most doctors will recommend a trial using one or more medications to help alleviate your atypical facial pain symptoms. These medications can include both anticonvulsants and antidepressants. It is very rare for opioid narcotics to be used; they have a different mechanism by which they work and don’t typically help resolve symptoms. Additionally, long-term use of these drugs can lead to addiction. Unfortunately, not everyone responds ideally to medication — side effects or a lack of efficacy can be reasons why medication might not be a viable option.
- Nerve blocks: Popular neurotoxin blocking agents such as Botox can be injected into the nerve area to temporarily dampen symptoms. It’s not often fully effective and has to be repeated regularly to maintain results.
Surgical Treatments
In general, surgery is the best option for most sufferers; this is doubly true when medication is not effective for treating atypical facial pain symptoms. Depending on the origin and nature of your atypical facial pain, your doctor may recommend one surgery over another. The most widely used and effective surgeries are outlined below.
- Microvascular decompression surgery: A minimally invasive surgery, microvascular decompression is the most widely used in young, healthy patients. A small incision is created and then an approximately 1-inch square piece of skull is removed. This allows your neurosurgeon to access the affected nerve and impacting blood vessel. A tiny Teflon pad is placed between these two structures to prevent the artery from rubbing or pulsing against the nerve.
- Gamma Knife radiosurgery: Despite its name, Gamma Knife radiosurgery is not surgery in the traditional sense. It’s noninvasive and uses multiple focused beams of radiation to destroy offending tissue(s) almost anywhere in the head/upper neck region. The pinpointed radiation causes minor damage to the nerve, slowing or eliminating the nerve impulses that send pain signals to your brain. It is often used in instances when surgery is contraindicated, such as in patients who cannot withstand anesthesia or have a tumor or lesion that is inaccessible via traditional surgical routes.
- Percutaneous rhizotomy: An alternative in cases where microvascular decompression may not be effective, percutaneous rhizotomy uses a guiding needle and small electrode to cauterize the offending nerve. This procedure will help “deaden” the nerve so that stimuli is less intense and subsequently alleviates facial pain.
- Pain stimulator implant: A third option is a pain stimulator implant. This involves a small electrode being threaded into an area on or near your trigeminal nerve. The implant then delivers electrical stimulation to the area, decreasing the nerve signals and resulting atypical facial pain symptoms.
Making the Right Choice for You
Advances in modern neurological medicine have made it easier than ever to receive treatment for your atypical facial pain symptoms. Once you’ve found the right doctor, you can start the hard — but rewarding — work of deciding how to treat your symptoms. Your neurosurgeon can help you determine which option or options may be the most effective for you and your unique needs.
Above all else, the most effective tool for finding relief from atypical facial pain is knowledge. Working with a doctor who is highly experienced in the area of facial pain disorders will give you the ability to learn and make choices to proactively manage your facial pain.
