Gamma Knife Perfexion: Trigeminal Neuralgia Treatment

What is trigeminal neuralgia?

Think of a summer breeze blowing against your cheek and causing a stabbing pain. Or, the blink of your eye leading to excruciating facial discomfort. This is trigeminal neuralgia. It is considered one of the most painful conditions of the human body.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a disorder of the nerve that supplies sensation to your face. People who suffer from trigeminal neuralgia can have episodes of sudden, intense, shock-like pain around their lips, eyes, nose, scalp, forehead or the upper and lower jaw. The pain can be triggered by daily activities like brushing your teeth, talking or eating.

Trigeminal neuralgia can happen at any age. It occurs most often in people over 50. The cause of trigeminal neuralgia is unknown.

What are the options for trigeminal neuralgia treatment?

There is a wide range of trigeminal neuralgia treatment options. What is effective for one person may not work for someone else. Talk with your doctor when making decisions about the best trigeminal neuralgia treatment for you.

Trigeminal neuralgia treatment usually begins with medication. Certain anti-convulsant drugs or anti-depressants may relieve the pain. Sometimes, medication brings relief at first, but the effectiveness may lessen over time.

People who don’t get long-term relief from medication or have intolerable side effects should consider trigeminal neuralgia surgery. There are several procedures that relieve pressure on the nerve or reduce nerve sensitivity. These range from nerve blocks or injections, a procedure done percutaneously through a needle puncture in the skin of the cheek, open skull surgery, or minimally invasive, pinpoint radiation such as the Gamma Knife.

You may also consider alternative medical therapies, such as acupuncture, hypnosis or meditation.

Why you should consider Gamma Knife radiosurgery for trigeminal neuralgia treatment.

Trigeminal neuralgia surgery using the Gamma Knife is a radiosurgical procedure that ends facial pain in 85 percent of patients. More than half of patients who have the procedure become medication free. Others need a much lower dose of medication to get relief.

Although it is called Gamma Knife radiosurgery, this safe, highly effective procedure requires no incision at all. It is virtually painless and is completed in just a few hours. Patients return home the same day and usually resume normal activities right away.

The Gamma Knife technology uses highly focused, powerful beams of radiation to damage the root of the trigeminal nerve. This interrupts the transmission of pain. The Gamma Knife’s directed beams are so precise near-by tissue is not harmed.

The Gamma Knife Program at Washington Hospital has one of the world’s most renowned and experienced teams of specialized physicians, medical experts and staff. Their goal is to make trigeminal neuralgia surgery and recovery for their patients as successful, fast, comfortable and easy as possible.

About Washington hospital

Washington Hospital, located in Fremont, California, was the first hospital in the United States to treat patients using the new Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion™, a revolutionary alternative to traditional open-brain surgery and/or daily radiation treatments, which are administered from four to six weeks. The Gamma Knife Perfexion instead uses focused doses of radiation without making a single incision to treat malignant and benign brain tumors in a matter of hours.

Washington Hospital's Gamma Knife® Program is led by one of the most accomplished teams of specialized physicians, physicists and nurses. Medical Directors neurosurgeon Sandeep Kunwar, MD, and radiation oncologist David Larson, MD, PhD, are both nationally and internationally recognized for their expertise, innovation and leadership in the field of Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Both board certified physicians, together they have more than 23 years of experience performing thousands of successful procedures.