Are you suffering from trigeminal neuralgia?
If so, how severely is it affecting your life? Does in come in waves? Or is the stabbing, burning sensation there almost 100% of the time? Are you sick of going to doctors’ appointments and “trigeminal neuralgia specialists” when the only thing that you’re told is that you need a stronger medication to deal with the pain? What’s most frustrating is that medication alone doesn’t really help identify the cause of the problem, only mask the symptoms.
So, if there was a natural, non-drug and non-surgical approach to helping trigeminal neuralgia with a high rate of success, would you want to know about it?
If so, let me explain the connection between trigeminal neuralgia, the upper part of your neck, and NUCCA.
What No One Has Ever Told You About Trigeminal Neuralgia
Most treatments for trigeminal neuralgia focus on the three main branches of the trigeminal nerve: the ophthalmic, maxillary and mandibular Nerves. Surgical procedures like microvascular decompression (MVD) are effective for trigeminal neuralgia about 50% of the time. Unfortunately, that leaves 50% of trigeminal neuralgia cases unimproved after treatment.
It would suggest that the other 50% experience trigeminal neuralgia for a different reason. That reason may well be dysfunction with the root of the trigeminal nerve.
That root of the trigeminal nerve is called the spinal trigeminal nucleus, which receives and processes all the sensory information from the branches of the Trigeminal Nerve. Here’s the part that you may not know and that pertains to trigeminal neuralgia. The spinal trigeminal nucleus extends from the brainstem through your spinal cord all the way down to the level of the C3 vertebra in your neck.
The implication here is that something that negatively affects your spinal cord in the upper part of your neck has the potential to produce the relentless pain of trigeminal neuralgia.
What is the Role of your Upper Neck in Trigeminal Neuralgia?
The alignment of the top three bones in your neck – the C1 (atlas) and C2 (axis) and C3 – is critical for the healthy function of your nervous system. Unlike the vertebrae lower down your back, these three bones are physically anchored to your spinal cord.
If you suffer an injury that causes any of these vertebrae to misalign, they can literally produce tension on your spinal cord like pulling on a piece of string. This tension can produce irritation to the spinal trigeminal nucleus and thereby cause trigeminal neuralgia.
If you don’t remember a specific injury that caused your trigeminal neuralgia, that is normal. The kind of injury that causes these types of problems at C1, C2 or C3 usually isn’t the kind of injury that breaks or dislocates anything. It is usually an injury when you felt sore for a few days, but you were able to carry on with things.
Unfortunately, you never realized that the injury created a little problem that has been growing beneath the surface for months, years or even decades until it finally becomes a big problem like trigeminal neuralgia.
So, the cause of trigeminal neuralgia may not always be a problem with the nerve branches. It can be a problem with your neck! So even though you’ve been to the doctors and specialists and they can’t find the cause of your trigeminal neuralgia. It very well could be because they’ve been looking in the wrong place! So, if you or a loved one is suffering from this condition, come get examined by a NUCCA doctor to rule out any possible upper cervical misalignments that can be putting unwanted pressure on your nervous system.
