Trigeminal neuralgia update – February 1

Earlier this year my neurologist referred us to the University of Iowa neurosurgery for procedures they can do for my trigeminal problem. My wife took me down there a couple of weeks ago and we met with neurosurgery. They could do a procedure called a rhizzotomy. I’m not sure I spelled it correctly but phonetically it is right. In this procedure they use a needle with an and they can heat and they kill part of the trigeminal nerve as a block to the pain.

We were also told there is a radiology procedure where they use a high-dose of radiation to kill the same nerve. After we were down and neurosurgery we met with the radiologist. It was a long day. We originally decided to do the radiology choice. After we got home we started thinking more about it and change our minds to the rhizzotomy. The radiologist had told us that I needed an MRI so he could determine if a MS lesion was near this nerve. If there was not he still said the chances of that procedure working were 50-50.

The more I thought about it the more the radiology choice seemed a poor one. Too involved a procedure and another MRI for 50-50 chance of success. I will know right away if the rhizzotomy was successful. Another problem with the radiology choice was it may take six months to find out if it worked because it does not destroy the nerve immediately.

One side effect of both procedures is that when the nerve is killed I will lose feeling in some control of the right side of my face. It is possible my jaw will droop in my face.. Unfortunately these are my only choices since the medications are not as effective as we had hoped.