John G. Golfinos, M.D., A.B.
Departments of Neurosurgery & Otolaryngology
NYU School of Medicine
530 First Avenue, Suite 8R
New York, NY 10016
212-263-2950
http://www.med.nyu.edu/clinicians/golfij01.html
Transcript: Surgical treatments for classic trigeminal neuralgia & other facial pain syndromes
Fortunately over the last few years, doctors have become much more educated about trigeminal neuralgia. At the same time, patients have become much more educated about classic trigeminal neuralgia. So it’s worked best for both worlds.
But we still see some patients come in that say that a neurologist or their dentist has told them that they have trigeminal neuralgia. The hardest ones are where a neurologist who is well respected and who they have respect for tells them that they have trigeminal neuralgia and then we listen to their story and it becomes clear to us that this can’t be trigeminal neuralgia and that this is neuropathic facial pain and that they want to know why we won’t recommend the microvascular decompression or why we won’t even recommend gamma knife radiosurgery. That can be a hard thing.
So I think it’s important for patients to understand the difference between classic trigeminal neuralgia and other facial pain syndromes that may look like it but are really masquerading as trigeminal neuralgia. In those situations there are treatments available. No one should lose hope but the range of treatments that we use for neuropathic facial pain are entirely different from the ones we use for trigeminal neuralgia.