In ancient times, doctors used to call Trigeminal Neuralgia “The Torture of the Face.” It sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? But if you have ever felt this pain, you know that “torture” is the only word that fits.I want to share a story with you that I will never forget. It happened about 18 years ago, but it is still fresh in my mind.I was sitting in my clinic when a man walked in. He looked rough—his clothes were messy, he hadn’t shaved in days, and his eyes were red. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t even speak properly.He sat down and placed a bottle on my desk. It was a bottle of pesticide.He looked me in the eye and said, “Doctor, I have been in pain for seven years. I can’t eat. I can’t talk. I know you do surgery for this. I just want to know one thing: Can you fix me? If you say no, I am going to drink this poison right here, right now.”He wasn’t joking. He was an educated man, an engineer, but the pain had broken him completely. This is why Trigeminal Neuralgia is often called the “Suicide Disease.” The pain is so bad that people feel like giving up is the only way out.

The “Short Circuit” in Your Face

You might be wondering: Why does this happen? Why does a simple touch or a breeze cause such a huge shock?I like to explain it like this: Think of your face as a house, and your nerves as the electrical wiring.Inside a normal electric wire, there is a copper core wrapped in a plastic coating. This coating keeps the electricity safe inside so it goes to the light bulb, not into the wall.Your nerve works the same way. It carries messages (like touch) to your brain. It has a protective coating called Myelin.But in Trigeminal Neuralgia, that coating gets worn off.

Why? Usually, there is a blood vessel inside your brain that is touching the nerve.

• Your heart beats about 70 times a minute.

• Every time it beats, that blood vessel pulses.

• It hits the nerve like a tiny hammer.

Imagine someone tapping a hammer on a wire 100,000 times a day. Eventually, the plastic coating wears off. The “wires” get exposed. Now, when you brush your teeth or touch your face, the electricity doesn’t go where it should. It short-circuits. Instead of feeling a soft touch, your brain gets a massive blast of pain.

Why Does It Happen Later in Life?

Patients often ask me, “Doctor, I was fine for 50 years. Why now?”The answer is simple: Aging. As we get older, our blood vessels get a little longer and curvier, kind of like varicose veins in the legs. In some people, the blood vessel gets so long that it runs out of space and starts leaning on the nerve. It takes years of that gentle “hammering” to finally wear through the coating. That is why the pain usually shows up when we are a bit older. I am happy to tell you that the man with the poison bottle did not use it. We performed a surgery called MVD (Microvascular Decompression). We found that little blood vessel pressing on his nerve, and we gently moved it away. We put a tiny, soft cushion between them so it could never touch the nerve again. When he woke up, the pain was gone. He was so happy he almost looked like a different person. He made me promise to build a center dedicated to helping people with this pain, and that is what we have done in Pune for the last 20 years.

My message to you is this: If you are in pain, please don’t lose hope. It is not in your head. It is a real, physical problem—a “short circuit”—and we can fix it.