TNA Press Release

GAINESVILLE, FL. – Recovery is possible for many patients with trigeminal neuralgia, a facial nerve disorder said to be the world’s most painful human condition, and for a wide array of other pains that strike the face.

This optimistic message is backed up by patients’ experiences and scientific data in a new consumer guidebook titled INSIGHTS: Facts and Stories Behind Trigeminal Neuralgia, by physician-dentist Joanna Zakrzewska of London.

The book provides an illustrated roadmap from diagnosis to the best available medical and surgical treatments, as well as a 10-step approach to “moving from patient to person” and practical tips on coping with recurrent pain. It is being released June 12, 2006 by the national Trigeminal Neuralgia Association (TNA) through its website at www.endthepain.org.

The author, known as Dr. Zak, sought input from patients across the United States and Britain, who described their facial pain experience and their search for help in stories and poems.  She says it is the patients who best define the pain of trigeminal neuralgia, in words such as "screaming pain, lightning bolts, electrical shocks, sword and fire."

“This book is a unique outcome of collaboration between health-care professionals supplying scientific facts, and patients sharing their perspective on the successes and shortcomings of various treatments,” said Roger L. Levy, esq., of Scottsdale, Ariz., an attorney and former TN patient who chairs the TNA board of directors.

Dr. Zak, a professor of pain in relation to oral medicine at the University of London, said her book is “one to swallow and digest slowly and to return to as needed.” A graduate of King’s College, London, and Cambridge University, she is the author of more than 80 scholarly publications, including a textbook on Assessment and Management of Orofacial Pain. She serves on the medical advisory boards for TNA in the US and the UK.