A novel method to treat recurrent facial pain: a case report

BACKGROUND: Chronic facial pain is a serious condition affecting millions of people worldwide. The reasons for chronic facial pain vary, and currently, the methods of treating chronic facial pain are expensive, invasive, and, based on current findings, ineffective. The purpose of this study is to develop and test an effective, cost-friendly method to treat patients with chronic facial pain. This study will examine the effectiveness of a novel treatment of a patient suffering from trigeminal neuralgia. CASE PRESENTATION: A 70-year-old Thai female visited the advanced general dentistry clinic at the Faculty of Dentistry, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand. She was suffering from facial pain on her left side and was diagnosed by a physician as having trigeminal neuralgia. She experienced a sharp shooting pain that was triggered by facial movements such as chewing, speaking, or brushing teeth, and touching certain areas of her face. Bouts of pain lasted from a few seconds to several minutes, and episodes of several attacks lasted days, weeks, months, or longer prior to her visit to the advanced general dentistry clinic at Mahidol University. Physician designed an occlusal equilibration appliance for treating the patient by inserting the appliance in the mouth for dental occlusal equilibration (deprogram). The patient used this appliance by placing it in the mouth continuously (day and night) and removed it only when eating. After using the appliance for 2 weeks, the patient appeared to feel and look better prior to taking medication and was able to eat normally. The patient was pain free after treatment for a duration of 9 months. However, after 9 months, the pain reoccurred and manifested itself. CONCLUSION: This novel treatment of recurrent facial pain showed an improvement of the patient’s chronic facial pain and serves as evidence to being a novel method for treating those suffering from trigeminal neuralgia. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13256-021-02888-1.