Gentle breeze meant she had to face agony

THERE’S nothing quite like a cool breeze on your face, especially when the weather is as hot as it has been recently.

For one lady who came in to the surgery last week, however, the feeling of a gentle wind meant agony rather than relief.

In fact talking, eating and even just brushing her teeth could cause her severe facial pain.

That’s because she had a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which is a repeated severe pain that occurs in the cheek or jaw – or even both.

It tends to happen on one side of the face but, it rarely, can occur on both sides. The discomfort itself is quite unpleasant. It’s a stabbing, sharp pain that patients often describe as being like an electric shock.

It can last a few seconds to a few minutes before fading – but it comes back.

The time between spasms of pain can be anything from a few moments to a few hours.

After a certain amount of time, a month or so, the patient goes into remission and the pain disappears, but it can subsequently return.

Since it can be triggered by something as gentle as a breeze, some patients with trigeminal neuralgia are a bit hesitant to do things we all take for granted.

I’ve seen people not shave, clean their teeth or eat for fear of causing themselves agony. So where does this pain originate? Well, neuralgia means nerve pain, and that’s exactly what this is.

The trigeminal nerve has three branches on each side that lead into the forehead, cheek and jaw.

These communicate the sensation of touch and pain from the face and mouth to the brain.

Most of the time, the condition is thought to be due to a blood vessel pressing on the root of the trigeminal nerve.

A medicine called carbamazepine is usually effective. It’s not a painkiller, but helps to dull the nerve impulses and so ease the pain until the bout passes.

There are surgical options – but they’re only for the more severe cases.