Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia, An Usually Overlooked Diagnosis: A Prospective Single Center Observation Study

Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia is often difficult to diagnose in view of its symptoms that overlap with many other regional causes. This subset of patients commonly visits otolaryngologists, dentists, oncologists only to be referred to the other and finally to the psychiatrist when the diagnosis is overlooked. We hereby present a prospective observation study of 26 cases of Glossopharyngeal neuralgia. In our observation we found a prevalence of 0.2% for glossopharyngeal neuralgia in our patients with facial pain, however amongst the neuropathic pain the GPN was more prevalent with about 35% of all the cases. Amongst the cases diagnosed with GPN we had 73.1% female predilection as compared to only 26.9% male. 53.8% of cases had left sided and 46.2% on the right sided making it non-significant in sidewise predilection.