Gamma Knife brings lasting relief from Marilyn’s trigeminal neuralgia pain

Trigeminal Neuralgia

Marilyn has a lively personality, an infectious laugh—and trigeminal neuralgia. When she first felt the electrical shock in her facial nerves in her early 30s, she knew just what it was. “It’s not hereditary, but my mom and my sister both have it,” said Marilyn. “It would hit out of the blue,” she recalled. “It would start in the middle of my jaw. It felt like a bolt of lightning. It hits you and it runs.”

Busy caring for her husband and five children, Marilyn didn’t have time to give in to the pain. Over the decades, doctors managed her pain with medication, but the searing episodes would always return. She found relief with microvascular decompression surgery, which worked well for about five years. In 2015, Marilyn found lasting relief from trigeminal neuralgia with Gamma Knife radiosurgery. She marveled at how easy the procedure was.

“I had a headache afterwards for a couple of days and that was it,” Marilyn said of her Gamma Knife surgery. “Believe me, after experiencing trigeminal neuralgia, a little headache is nothing. I would choose Gamma Knife again any day!”