Trigeminal Neuralgia Post Operative Pain

  I am a 49 year old male and have suffered from pain on the right side of my body since I was 19. The pain is in my neck, shoulder, arm, leg and most bothersome of all trigeminal neuralgia. In 1982 I had an operation called Trigeminal Rhizolysis in hopes of releiving the pain caused by the Trigeminal Neuralgia. The intent of this proceedure was to sever middle branch of the trigeminal nerve and stop the pain. Unfortunately the surgery effected the lower branch of the trigeminal nerve instead of the middle branch. I was left with numbness in my lower jaw, the right side of my tounge and the side of my face to the eye. Besides the numbness I have a constant wettness in the corner of my mouth which results in a drool. The operation left me with more pain than I had before the surgery. The pain from the Trigeminal neuralgia remained unchanged. Is there any hope of repairing the damage that was done from the operation?
  John

[CCF neurology MD MM]

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I am afraid that the chances of repairing a nerve lesion which occurred
17-18 years ago are essentially non-existant.
Nerve can heal by spontaneous regrowth but this must occurr within a year
and a half of the initial injury.
If the lesion occurred in 1982 it is simply too late to do anything about
this defecit.
Since 1982 however a range of new approaches to the pain of trigeminal
neuralgia have been developed, these include non-surgical lesioning of the
nerve " radio-frequency lesioning, which might help with your remaining
pain, although it will not help the damage due to nerve loss.
I would suggest that you consult a neurosurgeon to look into this
possibility in order to gain relief from the pain component of your problems at least.

[painful1963]

A related discussion, please stop te pain was started.