Hi, my Dad is 74 years old and has been diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia. It has come on with a bang so to speak. Our doctor has prescribed him Tegretol which was not working but has now increased it to 200mg 3 times perday. I asked our doctor if he should see a neurologist in case there is a tumor or anything and he said no. Also, I asked if there is any kind of surgery or procedures to help get rid of it and he also said no. He said that it will most likely burn itself out. I was just wondering if all of this is true as what I read online is totally different from what he is telling me.
There are few more medicines which are effective for trigeminal neuralgia. Other than carbemazipine, these are Gabapentin, pregabalin, duloxetine, baclofen. MRI Brain with angiogram is required to search for any vascular loop around trigeminal nerve roots. If there are vascular loops around trigeminal roots, then Microvascular decompression can be domain resistant cases, Gamma Knife radiosurgery to lush the trigeminal nerve roots can be tried