Glossopharyngeal neuralgia, clinical features and therapy

Glossopharyngeal neuralgia is a rare disease with an average age of 50 years. The attacks of pain come in paroxysms during deglutition or talking and are lightning-like. The pain occurs in the region of the base of the tongue, in the tonsillar fossa, under the angle of the jaw. There are sudden paroxysms and remissions which tend to become shorter with repeated clusters. The patient does not dare to eat thereby losing considerable weight or refuse to speak. Magnetic resonance imaging is done to look at a vascular loop. Medical and surgical treatments are the same as followed for trigeminal neuralgia, but the target site is the Andersch ganglia.