Tuesday, 22 April 2014

11 Feb: The microvascular decompression (MVD) procedure

It sounds like some wind will be taken out of me.  If only that was all.  The decompression involved going into my brain stem to reach all the naughty (or 'offending' in medical parlance) arteries and what-nots that were pressing on my trigeminal nerve which had caused me 8 years of pain.  Teflon felt pads were used to separate these offending vessels in 3-4 places.  This was to fix the trouble spots of compression that was causing the trigeminal neuralgia (TN). See one MVD website for more information.  If you have the stomach to watch a video of the MVD procedure, just google it.

After 4 hours of manipulation, there was numbness which the doctor said would take weeks to months to disappear.  He did have to add that 15% of patients may have to live with it the rest of their lives.  Well, for most MVD patients, it won't be that unacceptable as numbness was way way better than blinding pain.  It just takes getting used to, like having a permanent effect of the dentist's painkilling jab on one side of the face, together with half the tongue and teeth.   Even my right eye is more wet than my left because there is less control over tear production.

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