Living with Hemifacial Spasm

My right cheek started twitching this week–just the other day. It seemed odd and I thought I would do a little research. I know that at times my eyelid has twitched, but I didn’t pay attention until my cheek started.

My mother has suffered from Trigeminal Neuralgia for many years and has had pretty good control by taking Tegretol in generic form. She does complain of mental fuzziness but that might be aging also. She has her blood checked regularly to watch for complications. She would not consider surgery, now because of her age, but she also heard of someone who died during the surgery. The pain is described as terrible and she describes the attacks the same as other’s do as “lightning strikes” which can progress to constant screaming pain.

Trigeminal is caused by a compression of the 5th cranial nerve and HFS is compression of the 7th. HFS seems to fit the description of the twitching in my cheek although it is on the right side–the same side my mom’s trigeminal starts on. I am younger than she was when it started though. I am 56 and she was in her 70’s. Trigeminal is much worse than HFS and there is some evidence that it is genetic.

By reading these experiences, it seems that the choices are to live with it as it gets progressively worse, be injected with botox or have surgery. I live near Mayo clinic and I am thinking of making an appointment there to rule out an aneurism and other possible causes.