trigeminal neuralgia

Trigeminal neuralgia usually reponds well to acupuncture

Best wishes, Tony

My Dad had problems with TN for around 5 years - quite debilitating. He tried acupuncture a few times, but the effects were not long lasting - 3 days at most. In the end, it was regular use of gabapentin which alleviated the pain.

I recently took on a new client - at 74 year old man, who had surgery for TN about 3 years ago - he is now pain free, but did suffer some loss of muscle control on the side of his face.

Its probably worth trying acupuncture for at least 10 sessions. I have worked in hospitals in China where it is normal for this kind of condition to go every day but in the UK I tend to treat people twice or three times per week. If acupuncture doesn't work by itself I will use Chinese herbs to treat the underlying condition.

Best wishes, Tony

thanks for the replies

Tony, what herbs do you use?

It depends on the diagnosis, if its heat invasion then it would be heat clearing herbs like scutellaria, gardenia, forsythia etc, if its qi and blood stagnation, then it would be moving herbs like salvia and paeonia, if phlegm is diagnosed then phlegm clearing herbs like pinellia could be used. Thats the general principle and why best results are following a correct diagnosis of the pattern.

Tony