Referred Pain – It’s a Pain! – Causes – Part 3

• Trauma

A dental example of this has occurred when a tooth has had an infection which has resolved after a root canal treatment. Even though the x-ray may show, after some time, that the infection has gone, there is some residual pain. Often this pain is intermittent and not caused by any stimulation. This pain may begin to refer to other teeth. There have been cases where many teeth were removed and the pain still persisted.

Care must be taken in these situations to not make the problem worse. Usually medications for neuralgia will help, but this is usually assessed by a pain clinic.

Stem cell therapy has been used to repair the damaged nerve by growing new nerve tissue. However, the inflammation in and around the nerve must be resolved first, otherwise the injected stem cells will copy the inflammatory cells rather than nerve cells. It’s a very expensive treatment and needs great expertise for success.

Another cause of nerve pain is Unknown.

An example: Burning Tongue Syndrome

Possible causes:

• Iron deficiency anaemia
• Deficiencies of Vitamin B2, folic acid, Vitamin B12 and zinc can cause burning sensation of the tongue
• Herpes Simplex type 1 infections can cause sensations in the tongue as virus can inhabit and irritate the nerves.

It is long lasting, but essentially unknown causes or triggers. It can be debilitating.

Treatment

Treatment options may include:

1. Saliva replacement products.
2. Specific oral rinses or lidocaine.
3. Capsaicin, a pain reliever that comes from chili peppers.
4. An anticonvulsant medication called clonazepam (Klonopin).
5. Certain antidepressants.
6. Medications that block nerve pain.