Trigeminal Neuralgia : Covid-19 Vaccination

January 2022: We present a review of the current literature related to Trigeminal Neuralgia and COVID-19 vaccination. Is there any evidence of neurological complication? It's important that TN patients are aware of, and follow the current science.

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Transcript

All right so this is my literature review on Covid vaccinations and their relationship to neurological complications and there are a few studies out there and again this is an ongoing process. We're getting case reports, you know by the month that are new so we'll continue to update you on what we've what we've come up with but the current review right now, that i can see i've got a couple of papers here one this one's out of austria which suggests that there can be an incidence of stroke after the vaccine.

I'm not convinced by this article at all not nothing I've seen in the literature suggests that the incidence of stroke is elevated with the vaccine so I'm saying that this is not a convincing article and I would not pay attention to it. There is an incidence of Guillain-Barre..., there are two incidents; two reported incidents here, and this is a legitimate publication that comes to us through Dr. Goss and this is out of Houston Texas Department of Neurology, and it suggests that Guillain-Barre is a rare complication from the vaccination.

...and then lastly, there's one paper out of Singapore which reports an episode of Trigeminal Neuralgia as well as Cervical Radiculopathy or radiating neck and arm pain. So this is a patient that had within several hours of the vaccination developed immediate onset of severe lancinating facial pain and also arm pain radiation from the neck down into the arm. Now this lasted for a period of several days, but fortunately over a course of several days, as this patient recovered the symptoms went completely away. Over a course about five days; so yes it's possible that a vaccine could trigger some type of immunological or neurological reaction to flare up trigeminal neuralgia in somebody.

This was a person who didn't did not have Trigeminal Neuralgia, but certainly if you have trigeminal neuralgia there is a chance that the vaccine could do that but it appears to be temporary and certainly the protective effects of the vaccine far outweigh any risks related to causing any kind of prolonged Trigeminal Neuralgia episode, so I would still tell my patients with Trigeminal Neuralgia...,

Get the vaccine. It works. It protects you from being hospitalized. It protects you from neurological complications related to the virus which are much higher incidents than related some associated relations with the vaccine, and it's safe and effective. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to your doctor, who's taking care of you for Trigeminal Neuralgia. My vote is go with the vaccine and there's a small risk that you may have a slight flare-up. It's very rare and it resolves several days after the vaccination.

More about Trigeminal Neuralgia

Princeton Brain & Spine neurosurgeon Mark R. McLaughlin, MD, FACS, FAANS trained with Peter Jannetta, M.D., the "father" of modern microvascular decompression surgery for trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm, glossopharyngeal neuralgia, and other cranial nerve rhizopathies. Dr. McLaughlin worked closely with Dr. Jannetta in the ongoing research, and was the lead author of the paper 

"Microvascular decompression of cranial nerves: lessons learned after 4400 operations" published in the Journal of Neurosurgery in January 1999. On PUBMED

He was also co-author with Drs Jannetta and Casey of "Technique of Microvascular Decompression: A Technical Note"

Other TN resources include:

Trigeminal Neuralgia Factsheet at NIH

Trigeminal Neuralgia Overview at American Association of Neurological Surgeons

Rare Disease Database at National Organization for Rare Disorders

Covid-19 Resources

The Lancet is the world's oldest peer-reviewed medical journal. Their

The Lancet Covid-19 Resources page is trustworthy and contains current research.

@medstudentmags Hallway Walk Talks w me and @tiktokbraind0c. Join us on our walk to evaluate a patient with Trigeminal Neuralgia ???????????????? *no patients or health care teams were affected in the making of this video* *please contact a physician for any medical conditions or advice* #neurosurgery #medicine #trigeminalneuralgiaawareness #medicineexplained #medstudent #hallwaywalktalks #emergencymedicine #neurosurgeon #medicalstudent #premed #physician #futuredoctor #medicaltiktok #residentdoctor #surgery #doctorsoftiktok #studentdoctor #physicianassistant #healthcareworker #premedlife #fyp #viralmed #viral #medicinetiktok #trigeminalneuralgia #neuralgia #facepain #nursesoftiktok #ermedicine #anatomy #neuroanatomy #specialist ♬ original sound - Maggie Fitzpatrick

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