Natural Relief for Trigeminal Neuralgia Symptoms

Also known as tic douloureux, trigeminal neuralgia is a chronic pain condition that is ongoing and affects your trigeminal nerve. The trigeminal nerve, or the 5th cranial nerve, is the most complex cranial nerve and is a widely distributed nerve in your face that is responsible for sensations and motor functions such as chewing and biting.

Trigeminal neuralgia mostly affects people over the age of 50 and is seen more commonly in women than men. Trigeminal neuralgia symptoms are extremely painful, but there is a treatment option that can help treat those who experience these trigeminal neuralgia symptoms without the use of medication or surgery.

What are Trigeminal Neuralgia Symptoms?

Trigeminal neuralgia symptoms can easily affect a person’s quality of life and for very good reason: it can cause you to avoid daily activities including washing, shaving, or eating along with social activities. To understand how trigeminal neuralgia symptoms can cause significant changes in one’s quality of life, we have included the following list of trigeminal neuralgia symptoms:

• Episodes of several attacks - Those who suffer from trigeminal neuralgia symptoms may notice their painful episodes may last anywhere from a couple, weeks, to months or even longer! There are some cases in which individuals will have a down period of experiencing no pain, only to have another episode sometime later.
• Aching and Burning - A constant aching, burning feeling may occur before evolving into a spasm-like pain.
• Pain on One Side of Face -Very rarely will the pain of trigeminal neuralgia affect both sides of the face. Typically, with trigeminal neuralgia, a person will feel pain on one side of their face.
• Focused or Wide Pattern Pain - The pain associated with trigeminal neuralgia can be focused in one spot or can spread into a wider pattern.
• Bouts of Pain - Trigeminal neuralgia can cause a short period of intense pain lasting from a few seconds to several minutes at a time.
• Severe Painful Episodes - The pain from trigeminal neuralgia is often described as a shooting or jabbing pain that could feel like an electric shock. There are times which a person who suffers from trigeminal neuralgia symptoms can experience very painful, severe episodes of this type of pain.
• Attacks Triggered by Small Actions - Simple daily things like touching one’s face, speaking, brushing teeth, or chewing could trigger a painful attack. Other triggers include Shaving, drinking, washing your face, putting on makeup, smiling, or encountering a breeze.
• Spontaneous Attacks of Pain - Just like how small actions could trigger attacks, there are times in trigeminal neuralgia in which the person may experience pain without any known action to trigger it.
• Pain in the Trigeminal Nerve Area - The trigeminal nerve area includes the cheek, teeth, jaw, gums, and lips. Less often will the pain be noticeable in the eye and forehead.
• Frequent or More Intense Attacks - Over time, trigeminal neuralgia attacks can become more frequent or increase in intensity over time.

The Cause Behind Trigeminal Neuralgia Symptoms

Trigeminal neuralgia symptoms appear when the trigeminal nerve’s function is disrupted. Typically, the issue is from contact between a normal blood vessel or, in this case, a vein or an artery and the trigeminal nerve which is located at the base of your brain.

This contact applies pressure onto the trigeminal nerve and causes it to malfunction – triggering painful trigeminal neuralgia symptoms.

How this contact happens can vary: It could happen due to aging, in relation to multiple sclerosis or a similar disorder, tumor compressing the trigeminal nerve, brain lesion or other abnormalities, stroke, facial trauma, or surgical injuries.

An All-Natural Treatment Option for Trigeminal Neuralgia

Most treatment options focus solely on trigeminal neuralgia symptoms. While sufferers do look forward to seeing relief from trigeminal neuralgia symptoms, the unnatural treatment options that target the symptoms instead of the underlying cause are not always beneficial and could lead to more problems.

In addition, unnatural treatment options such as medication and surgery force your body to ignore significant signs instead of correcting the problem. 

For instance, surgery options include destroying nerve fibers associated with pain and damaging the trigeminal nerve to block pain signals. In no way is destroying your body’s natural functions a way to stop what is causing it to occur in the first place.

The goal of medication treatments for trigeminal neuralgia symptoms is to do the exact same thing: lessen or block signals sent to your brain.

Before altering the body’s natural abilities or functions, it is best to try an all-natural treatment to help strengthen, heal, and repair your body instead.

Upper cervical adjustments are very beneficial to those who suffer from trigeminal neuralgia with patients reporting a significant reduction or complete elimination of their trigeminal neuralgia symptoms!

Upper Cervical Treatments for Trigeminal Neuralgia

Upper cervical adjustments help fix misalignments located right beneath the base of your skull. When a vertebra is out of alignment in the upper cervical (neck) area, it can cause pressure to your trigeminal nerve and brain stem – which distorts your body’s signals. 

Aging, injury, and multiple sclerosis can very easily shift the vertebra out of alignment either instantly or over time.

An upper cervical chiropractor is different from general chiropractic and completely focuses on ensuring healthy brain stem function. In this same area, the bottom of the neck is where your trigeminal nerve originates from.

This means any misalignment compressing the brain stem can just as well cause pressure onto your trigeminal nerve.

Patients who have tried upper cervical treatments even after surgical and medicated treatments still noticed a significant improvement in their condition.

This is because surgical and medicated treatments do not target the underlying problem: the vertebra compressing against the brain stem and trigeminal nerve will still be there!

Although some trigeminal neuralgia symptoms may dissipate after surgery or medication due to their ability to force the body to ignore the signals, living with a compressed brain stem or trigeminal nerve can cause many other issues to arise later in time.

If you or a loved one is experiencing trigeminal neuralgia symptoms and are looking for relief, an upper cervical adjustment may be just what you need. They are gentle, precise, and safe for any age.

The number of adjustments depends on the severity of your misalignment; however, the goal of the upper cervical chiropractor is to only adjust when needed and as little as possible until your body grows strong enough to hold the correction on its own.