Debilitating trigeminal neuralgia secondary to idiopathic intracranial hypertension

Assad Ali; Raphael Bastianon Santiago; Julio Isidor; Mauricio Mandel; Mohamad Adada; Michal Obrzut; Badih Adada; Hamid Borghei-Razavi

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19756

Debilitating trigeminal neuralgia secondary to idiopathic intracranial hypertension

Heliyon. 2023 Sep 10;9(9):e19756. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19756. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Assad Ali¹, Raphael Bastianon Santiago¹, Julio Isidor¹, Mauricio Mandel¹, Mohamad Adada¹, Michal Obrzut¹, Badih Adada¹, Hamid Borghei-Razavi¹

Affiliation

¹ Cleveland Clinic Florida, Department of Neurosurgery, Weston, FL, United States.

Abstract

Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) is characterized by raised intracranial pressure with unknown etiology. The most common neurological manifestations are headache and visual loss. Often, other cranial nerve impairments are also found, most commonly in the VI nerve. Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a debilitating condition that is most frequently caused by neurovascular pathology, but TN secondary to IIH is a rare and poorly described topic. Possible explanations of TN in these patients include the distortion of the local anatomy at CN entry zones and fluid displacement causing distortion of the Meckel's cave. In the case below we describe the clinical course of an obese female patient with TN-like pain who underwent a ventriculoperitoneal shunt to treat IIH and experienced complete resolution of both conditions.

Keywords: Idiopathic intracranial hypertension; Meckel's cave; Trigeminal neuralgia; Ventriculoperitoneal shunt.

Publication types

Case Reports