The Torment of the Suicide Disease
A dentist, compared to other specialties in medicine, generally has to deal with milder medical horrors. But I can never forget the day that this old lady, walked into my clinic. I could see the terror in her eyes as she painfully described her torment, in tortured tears. Such is the fate of a cruel disease called trigeminal neuralgia, infamously called the ‘suicide disease’.
Let me give you an insight into this wretched disease-
In your body, usually, the threads of nerves dance in harmony, yet rarely enough, one nerve, the trigeminal nerve, becomes entwined in a web of suffering. This nerve, a conductor of sensation, courses through your face.
The disaster strikes when some damage or malformation happens to this nerve. Or a destructive force — a blood vessel or a lurking tumor — presses upon it like a dark villain, disrupting the harmony of this intricate composition. Sometimes, your genetic makeup decides to put you through this agony.
Fortunately, this demon is rare, reported to be as low as 15 per 100,000 individuals. Women and the above fifty age group, have a slightly higher predisposition.
The characteristic pain is what rattles the mental state of the patients. This isn’t just any pain; it’s an army of searing, electric sensations that blaze like wildfire along the pathways of the trigeminal nerve. It could be any time of the day, intense and abrupt- crushing your soul for just seconds. It could disrupt you multiple times during the day or just randomly visit you a couple of times in a year.
A gentle touch, a soft breeze, or even a sip of warm tea can set off the inferno within your nerves. Certain trigger zones can be identified on the face when stimulated sets off this bizarre pain reaction. As a result, you will fear even brushing or washing that particular area of your face.
While describing your symptoms, the physician will rule out other typical pains like dental pain, migraine, and TMJ pain, to reach the correct diagnosis. Since there are no definitive tests to confirm this disease, physicians have to solely rely on the patient’s story; the story of blood-curdling pain.
Medical imaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), reveal the anatomy beneath the surface. Any damage or malformation can be viewed to understand the cause.
Medications, like anticonvulsants, attempt to calm the searing pain signals. But sometimes, the pain’s grip remains unyielding, and surgical interventions emerge as heroes. Microvascular decompression and ablative procedures strive to silence the torment once and for all.
And hence, victory is pronounced. You can go back to your old self without the crippling pain being a part of it. Fortunately, it is not one of those diseases which do not have a cure. Although I wish, no one had to experience it in the first place. And as for the old lady that walked into my clinic, after surgery, she could finally think of many other things in her life other than the pain!
