A Study of Trigeminal Neuralgia: Special Reference to Painful Awakenings During Sleep

Abstract

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is one of the most painful conditions producing paroxysms of unilateral, recurrent, brief, stabbing, and severe pain along the distribution of trigeminal nerve. While various triggers such as shaving, washing face, chewing, touching or draft of air have been known to exacerbate the pain, it is believed that sleep has a favorable effect on TN and that the pain of TN rarely occurs in sleep.[1-5] There are very few studies of TN in the Indian context; moreover, no study has evaluated the relationship between sleep and TN. Hence, to study the characteristics of Indian TN patients and to evaluate the effects of sleep on pain, we carried out this study.