dental problems?

[Danete]

  I have recently just been diagnosed with TN. But at the same time, I am experiencing an abscessed tooth. I am wondering, if I do have TN, could it be caused by the abscess infection? And when the infection goes away, will also the TN? (I know I must have TN, because the pain I get is far far worse than an abscessed tooth pain.) The object of the question is to find out whether this can be reversed. Also, will work on the tooth aggravate my TN? Thank you.
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Dear Danette,
Trigeminal neuralgia and an abcessed tooth are two separate painful entities that occur in the face.  They have different causes and treatments, not to mention different characteristics in a patient's history.  The two may overlap and this may be an appropriate description of your situation.
Trigeminal neuralgia presents with brief episodes of lancinating, shock-like pain brought on by a touch, chewing, heat and cold, for example.  The pain lasts only a minute or two and subsides.  An abcessed tooth usually causes local pain around the tooth that generally does not have the episodic quality of trigeminal neuralgia.  The pain and irritation from an abcessed tooth could conceivably trigger trigeminal neuralgia pain.
The treatments for an abcessed tooth are antibiotics and drilling out the tooth.  For trigeminal neuralgia we start with medical therapies and then consider nerve injections or surgery, depending on the patient.  Check out the numerous answers to trigeminal neuralgia questions in the archives of this forum for more details.
The best way to know the answer is to have the abcessed tooth treated and see whether the trigeminal neuralgia responds as well.
Good luck.