Categories Trigeminal Neuralgia

Trigeminal Neuralgia Recovery

Trigeminal Neuralgia

Anyone who has suffered from or watched someone suffer from trigeminal neuralgia knows just how devastating the syndrome is. many people who suffer go to extremes in finding relief. I recall a patient years ago who had half of the teeth in her mouth removed.

She was seeking an answer to the horrendous pain she was experiencing daily. The dentist told her the teeth were the culprit. AS many TN patients experience excruciating pain in their teeth. After the removal of over 12 teeth, the pain still persisted. 

They then told her that her pain was from a bone infection. Over the next month, they proceeded to scrape away the jay bone to the point that today she has to wear a prosthetic to keep her face from looking like a stroke patient. This should make it clear how badly these patients suffer. And show what they are willing to go through to find a cure. There is a reason they call TN the suicide disease.

Our office publishes these blogs to give people hope. While Upper Cervical Care is NOT a cure-all it has been successful at giving TN sufferers relief when all other methods of treatment have failed. Below you will find a video of a man who suffered from TN for over 16 years.

He underwent Upper Cervical Care and since seeking the care has had a recovery from his TN prison. We have found that patients that suffer from TN and have undergone other forms of treatment without success, often respond beautifully to Upper Cervical Care.

Over the years our office has taken care of over 30 cases of TN. A large majority of those patients are now living life again.

Trauma Can Cause Chronic Nervous System Problems

Many of us throughout life have traumas that can displace the top bone in the neck from its normal position relative to the head. When this happens there is a cascade of neurological consequences that follow. Interference at the brainstem level causes the spinal muscles to become tight.

When muscles become tight the normal neck curve (lordosis) straightens. This straightening of the neck curve puts tensile stress on the spinal cord and can distort the nerve tissue and compromise normal function. Nerve nuclei in the brainstem are responsible for controlling the Trigeminal nerve. This nucleus can become compromised from a straight neck and a misaligned atlas.

How Does Upper An Upper Cervical Correction Relieve TN Symptoms?

Upper Cervical Doctors correct spinal misalignments in the upper neck. When corrected several things start to occur in the body. Muscles in the neck and spine start to relax. Abnormal spinal curves start to return to a more normal structure. 

These changes can alter the irritation on the trigeminal nerve enough to alleviate the TN attacks. The patient in the testimony below is an example of how Upper Cervical Care can help TN sufferers. 

We are used to taking care of patients that have been everywhere and almost lost hope that they will ever recover. We offer a free consultation in our offices to see if you can be helped.

Categories Trigeminal Neuralgia

Trigeminal Neuralgia: It Sounds Scary Because It Is Scary.

Trigeminal neuralgia: it sounds scary because it is scary. It is actually labeled the suicide disease. I am Dr. Zach Shaw with the Upper Cervical Spine Center, and many patients in our office experience trigeminal neuralgia. Unfortunately, they come to our office because our office is their last hope.

They have been everywhere – neurologists, pain doctors, all kinds of different doctors, yet no one can figure out what is causing the trigeminal neuralgia. Trigeminal neuralgia is a severe condition where the face feels like it is constantly in pain. Pain sensation ranges from pins and needles, to very sharp, stabbing pains, to burning sensations, and this can go all the way into the eye, teeth, and jaw. Frequently, it happens out of nowhere, but can sometimes be due to a specific accident. It is called the suicide disease for a reason. People literally cannot live with this condition. They cannot sleep. They cannot function. They cannot enjoy life. It is a terrible, terrible condition.

When people come to us with this condition, we feel so terrible for them, and we wish that more people (maybe you) could find an Upper Cervical doctor, so they can get the help that they need. Trigeminal neuralgia is characterized by severe facial pain. The trigeminal nerve, or the fifth cranial nerve, comes off the brainstem and innervates the face. It has three branches that separately go to your eye, cheek, and jaw. This is why patients have facial pain, whether it is on the top of their face, the bottom of the face, or possibly both. Why do patients seek out Upper Cervical care? Why do we get amazing results with trigeminal neuralgia patients? The reason is directly due to brainstem.

The nucleus of the trigeminal nerve starts at the brainstem. The brainstem is surrounded by the top two bones in your neck. When we see patients, we perform an exam and take x-rays of these bones. Almost always, we find an upper cervical misalignment or a misalignment in one of the top two bones in the neck that causes pressure on the brainstem. In their case, it’s affecting that trigeminal nerve. What we do is we locate the misalignment and correct it to take the pressure off the brainstem, thus freeing up the trigeminal nerve.

As we keep pressure off the brainstem, we see the trigeminal neuralgia go away. It is quite amazing stuff and usually, these people end up crying from happiness because they have finally gotten rid of this terrible, terrible disease called trigeminal neuralgia. 

Categories Trigeminal Neuralgia

Everything You Need To Know About Trigeminal Neuralgia

Everything you need to know about Trigeminal Neuralgia. the Suicide Disease, right? If you have Trigeminal Neuralgia, you know very well what I’m talking about.

What is Trigeminal Neuralgia?

The Trigeminal Nerve is a cranial nerve, comes off the brainstem, down in the neck. It goes back up into the face, and then it splits off into three branches, right? The Trigeminal Nerve. One, it goes across the forehead, one across the face, and one down around the chin. Now, the Trigeminal Neuralgia itself, the pain can affect any one of the three or any combination or all three. They call it The Suicide Disease because it’s the most painful pain on demand. People say it’s like someone’s stabbing you in the face with an ice pick. I’ve heard it’s like chewing on aluminum foil. I’ve heard some horrific explanations from our patients.

What is the medical approach? Well, the medical approach is basically drugs and surgery. Those are the only two weapons that medicine has. The drugs typically prescribed are anticonvulsants. Anticonvulsants like seizure medications, like Topamax, Dilantin, Tegretol. These obviously are seizure medications, but it’s been known to knock the edge off for a little bit. I have people that typically start off with a smaller dose, and you have to keep up, and the body gets immune to it, usually just taking the edge off. For some people, the medications do not have much effect. At the same time, they make you dizzy, they make you confused, you’re not supposed to drive when you take them. The medication itself can be debilitating.

The surgical approach is to go in and do an incision and put a hole in the skull. They wrap a little Teflon thing around the Trigeminal Nerve, and the statistics on their website say it’s pretty good, but I’ve had multiple patients that have had this procedure and had no results, some even were worse after the surgery. The other thing is that you were not born with a Teflon deficiency. Okay? There’s a reason why you have Trigeminal Neuralgia. For every effect in the universe, there is a cause, and the cause of Trigeminal Neuralgia is not a drug deficiency or lack of Teflon coating around the nerve.

Where does Trigeminal Neuralgia come from?

Well, so from my experience, we’ve had patients come here from all over the United States, literally all over the world from as far away as China, to get relief for their Trigeminal Neuralgia, and what we’ve found is if one of the bones at the top of the neck is out of alignment, that’s where the Trigeminal Nerve inserts into the brainstem and sends its messages to the brain. What happens is that the Trigeminal Nerve is a sensory nerve, so it sends messages of sensation from the face to the brain, and in the case of Trigeminal Neuralgia, there’s nothing wrong with the face; the face is perfectly fine. But, somewhere between the face and the brain, there’s a message that gets interpreted as pain that ends up at the brain.

How can that happen?

Well, somewhere between the nerve, sensation, which is in the face, and the message, there’s only one place that that nerve can really be interfered with and that’s at the brainstem. If one of the bones here is out of alignment, it quite literally interferes with the normal transmission from the face to the brain. Like stepping on a garden hose, it can actually alter the sensation to the brain, telling the brain that there is pain in the face when there’s really nothing there creating the pain, but the pain is what the brain senses. What we have found is that we can find that misalignment, and if we can just so simply move the bone back where it’s supposed to be, taking the pressure off of where the nerve inserts to the brainstem, then the normal message, no pain in the face, gets to the brain unimpeded, unaltered, taking away the sensation of pain. Okay?

Where does it come from?

How does that bone get out of alignment? Well, some sort of a trauma. It could have been months ago, years ago, decades ago. It could have been birth, we don’t know. Looking at x-rays we can give you a pretty good timeframe. But if you had some sort of trauma, it could have been a car wreck, could have been a fall, could have been a slap upside the head, or a sports injury. There are so many different ways one of those little bones can move just enough. Now, the brain still doesn’t have any pain perception, so you don’t have to have neck pain or headaches or anything like that. But it could be interfering with a message for years between your brain and your body to the point for eventually just start affecting the Trigeminal Nerve.

There are things that make that misalignment worse over time, and we’re all exposed to stress: physical, chemical, emotional. And those stresses can actually make the misalignment worse. The body tenses and pulls and makes it worse and worse and worse to the point to where it starts to produce symptoms. Our approach as Upper Cervical Chiropractors is to find that very specific minute misalignment that could be interfering with the messages to the brain from the face. We remove it, open the message up, then the brain starts to get the normal message.

Categories Trigeminal Neuralgia

Trigeminal Neuralgia the “Suicide Disease”

Trigeminal Neuralgia. Considered by experts to be the most painful condition on the face of the earth. Year after year, people are afflicted with this horrible disease. The pain is not constant pain. Not a pain with which you can become accustomed. 

The pain is never constant and will flare up from the smallest of sensations. The wind blowing, a feather across the face, eating a small bit of food, or even a soft pillowcase can cause an uproar of pain that the rest of us can only imagine. What are the options for these people? The typical route is painkillers, but even the strongest of these cannot cover that amount of pain. Another route is to snip the trigeminal nerve. 

The signals of pain travel along this nerve and when snipped the pain will stop. Although many times, all sensation in the face is taken away as well. In addition, this technique only lasts for a few months as the nerve regenerates and begins the same process again. Finally, microvascular decompression surgery can be performed but finding a practitioner is problematic and there is a chance of death and permanent paralysis.

This is how Trigeminal Neuralgia got the name the “Suicide Disease.” Because when these people seek help from the sources they are used to asking, they are told that there is no fix. There is no reliable help. “Just live with it.” 

The trigeminal neuralgia nerve is what carries the pain. It carries it from the brainstem. Is the brainstem the culprit or is something happening to the brainstem? MRI studies have shown that pressure from vertebral subluxation, or misalignment in the upper cervical spine, is being put on the part of the brainstem that the nerve comes from. An artery that has been displaced is usually what puts on this pressure. Much of the time, the top bone of the spine can slip out of alignment from some sort of trauma. 

It begins to cause this problem, moving blood vessels and sometimes displacing them onto the brainstem itself. When this is the cause, only an exact upper cervical chiropractic adjustment to the top bone in the spine can remove that pressure. Once the pressure is reduced, the cause of the disease is also removed. The only way to cure a disease for good is by taking care of the cause. Upper cervical specific chiropractic gives hope for these suffering folks, who have no other answers or solutions. 

If you, or a loved one, are battling this awful condition please seek out an upper cervical chiropractor that can address the cause. It can make all the difference in their life and yours.