'Suicide disease' which troubles Salman Khan often gets confused with toothache, migraine – know why

On the popular sitcom ‘Too much with Kajol and Twinkle’, the megastar Salman Khan opened about an unusual pain which he experienced for the first time on the sets of a movie when his co-actress Lara Dutta had removed a strand of hair from his face.

Khan described the pain as ‘electrifying’, not wishing upon even his worst enemies.

Initially dismissing it off as a bad toothache, he was later informed that it was much more complex.

He was diagnosed with ‘trigeminal neuralgia’ or the ‘suicide disease’ — the medical community calling it as one of the 'most excruciating pain known to humanity'.

The condition causes sporadic, intense, sudden, electric jolts on either side of the face. This pain can very often travel all the way up to the lower jaw and this is when it gets confused with migraine or a dental abscess at the first look of it.

Though rare and very often benign, the condition can have a significant impact on the quality of a person's life. 

Wish like hitting my face hard

Sonia Chandok, a 44-year-old educational instructor based in Agra has lost her appetite over the last 10 years in fear of getting a recurrent episode when she eats food.

Also known as tic douloureux, the painful condition is caused by an irritation caused to the trigeminal nerve, the fifth cranial nerve that carries sensory impulses all across the face. It offshoots into the eyes, nostrils and the lower jaw.

The trigeminal nerve can misfire when it's triggered by movement of the face, wind that blows over one’s face or simply during the act of chewing food.

“For me it began while I was eating something some years back. It was a sharp electric jolt. I thought it was temporary but when it got repeated, I started to become averse to food in fear of its recurrence. Very often I felt like smashing my face against an object,” expressed Chandok. 

For some people, something as harmless as a moving fan can trigger the pain, said experts.

The trigeminal nerve gets sparked under two conditions — if the nerve gets compressed by nearby structures like blood vessels or if it is suppressed by tumour, cyst, facial injury or other medical conditions.

As per studies, the condition affects more females than males and affects the right side of the face more than the left side.

Often misdiagnosed

As per reports, for most people the pain begins out of nowhere and for others it starts to affect after an injury or a dental or facial procedure.

The trigeminal nerve system often overlaps for various face-related painful conditions like migraine or dental pain. This causes trigeminal neuralgia to be dismissed off as other two common causes.