HEALTH &
Wellness
The Excruciatingly Painful Life of Trigeminal Neuralgia BY KAREN LANGSTON, HOLISTIC NUTRITIONIST, WWW.HEALTHYGUTADVISOR.COM
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Imagine waking up, a normal morning unlike any other. You get out of the shower, wipe the foggy mirror with a towel, grab your toothbrush, look into the mirror, and suddenly, you feel this sharp, unimaginable, excruciating pain on your face that gets progressively worse with no end in sight.
This is exactly what happened to Karl Kroeppler. After a couple of weeks of this odd excruciating pain, Kroeppler went to a Scottsdale outpatient clinic, where the doctor diagnosed him on the spot with trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Kroeppler was lucky—since the symptoms of TN are similar to many other diseases and conditions, it can be challenging to receive a correct diagnosis. An estimated 40,000 are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. It tends to appear more often in those over the age of 40, and is slightly more common in women. According to the Facial Pain Association of Florida, TN, also historically referred to as tic douloureux, Fothergill’s
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disease, prosoplasia, or trifacial neuralgia, TN is a chronic pain condition affecting the trigeminal (fifth cranial) nerve, which carries sensation from a person’s face to their brain. It is not life-threatening; however, it is considered to be one of the most painful afflictions known to the medical field. It has been dubbed “the suicide disease,” because some patients believe death is the only relief from the relentless pain. There are different classifications and types of trigeminal neuralgia. The typical, or “classic,” form referred to as Type 1 or TN1, causes extreme, sporadic, sudden burning, or shocklike facial pain that lasts anywhere from a few seconds to as long as two minutes per episode.
