facial neuralgia and toothache

Nanazolie

Hi

After months of a dull toothache which gradually turned into electric shock like pains, I was finally diagnosed with facial neuralgia by a pain specialist (3 separate dentists found nothing wrong with my teeth). The treatment (Gabapentin) cleared the electric shocks within a few days but the dull ache still remains. Some days are better than others, some days the pain gets more acute. It feels like when you have a cavity and your tooth is sensitive to every move, only there is no cavity. And the pain / ache runs all along my bottom right hand side jaw. I can't point to a specific tooth

I am still on the medication, but it's been 6 weeks now and I wonder if this will ever settle. Does anyone have experience of the same?

Thanks

Scruffles

yep,have had trigeminal neuralgia since a teen [now twentyeigt],am already on maximum doseages of tegretol for epilepsy so removing the tn wont remove the meds,often have to an opiate to combat the worst attacks.

there are some procedures/operations available for tn but will usualy find doctors make people wait a while trying different meds before saying its uncontrolable and moving onto procedures/operations.

from own experience,was not able to cope with gabapentin,found it far to zombieish,had no awareness of anything at all and it made one whole side of face and body numb in the same effect as a stroke,was also drooling out of the dropped side.

give the meds time if the side effects are copeable,as it the time it takes differs in everyone plus there are a lot of meds available now.

may find it helpful to read the wikipedia page for classic tn-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_neuralgia
and atypical tn-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical_trigeminal_neuralgia

Nanazolie

Thanks a lot Scruffles, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience

The pain seems to have settled a bit. At the weekend, it was so constent I thought there had to be something, like some root canal or a bad cavity, but nope, 2 days later it had gone and now I only get a mild electric shock every now and then. It's enough to drive people crazy!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Glad you getting the correct treatment now, your very lucky you didn't end up with a bunch of unnecessary dental treatment. The dentist who refused to treat teeth that had no apparent problems deserve a pat on the back.