First, what is trigeminal neuralgia? Here is a brief introduction. Trigeminal neuralgia is a recurrent severe pain in the trigeminal nerve area. Sudden seizures, without any warning, brushing teeth, washing face, talking, cold stimulation, eating and so on can cause seizures. The pain was paroxysmal electric shock, knife cut, tear-like sharp pain, sudden stop, the interval was completely normal. Each pain lasted for several seconds to 1-2 minutes. With the prolongation of the course of the disease, the interval of attack was gradually shortened and the pain was gradually aggravated. Someone once called it "the first pain in the world", which can be seen that it caused great physical and mental distress to patients. The trigeminal nerve mainly distributes in the face. There are three branches: the eye branch, the maxillary branch and the mandibular branch. Each branch has a relatively fixed range of innervation.
These three branches belong to the peripheral branches, just like the "trunk", and the semilunar ganglion is the first neuron of the trigeminal nerve, just like the "root of the tree", as shown in the following figure. The so-called "cutting grass and eradicating root" also adapts to trigeminal neuralgia. A large number of studies and clinical cases have confirmed that the treatment at the semilunar ganglion is more effective than that at the peripheral branch and lasts longer, because the peripheral nerve will repair itself after being destroyed. After a period of time, it is possible to restore to the preoperative state, while the semilunar ganglion is where the nerve cell body is located, and it is difficult to restore after being destroyed. Restore.
There are many treatments for trigeminal neuralgia. Radio frequency and microvascular decompression of trigeminal semilunar ganglion are the radical operations with definite curative effect. The curative effect of the two methods is similar, but microvascular decompression is a craniotomy, which requires a high level of patient's physical condition, and the risk of operation is greater, even death cases have been reported. Radio frequency of the semilunar ganglion is a minimally invasive puncture therapy, with minimal injury and high safety.
