New Delhi:
A 28-year-old Australian woman has endured relentless pain for nearly three years due to a condition called ‘suicide disease’. In 2022, Emily Morton had everything to look forward to. She had just married the love of her life, Andy, and was excited about starting a family.
Soon after, she began experiencing a strange, nagging pain in her teeth. A visit to the dentist revealed nothing, but within days, the pain became excruciating, spreading across her mouth and both sides of her face.
“Imagine having a dentist drill into every single one of your teeth 24/7 and there is nothing you can do to stop the pain,” Ms Morton told news.com.au. She said she began experiencing electric shocks going through both sides of her face, triggered by anything that touched her face.
After a series of brain scans and blood tests, she was diagnosed with atypical trigeminal neuralgia, a rare variant of classic trigeminal neuralgia. This condition affects the trigeminal nerve, which sends sensory signals from the face to the brain, triggering intense pain with even the lightest touch. While typical trigeminal neuralgia affects one side of the face, Ms Morton’s case involves pain on both sides, making it all the more debilitating.
“It would hurt when I smiled, talked and ate,” she said. “There are no words to describe this degree of pain. It is like being struck by lightning, it makes you want to fall to the ground and scream.”
Doctors have described the disorder as the “most painful condition known to medicine,” and treatments have proven largely ineffective. The condition has earned the nickname “suicide disease” because of the extreme pain sufferers endure, often leading them to wish for an end to their suffering.
There are still no real answers to explain how or why Ms Morton contracted the condition. She has spent thousands of dollars trying to find a cause and an effective treatment for the pain, travelling both interstate and overseas in search of relief. She and her husband moved back in with her mother because she could no longer work. She has spent over $15,000 (almost Rs 8 lakh) on treatments within Australia and even sought alternative therapies in Europe but with no success.
She revealed the condition “has taken everything from me.” “It takes over my entire existence,” she said. “My entire life is on hold while I search for something to give me relief. I just take it day by day and hold on to hope.”
However, there is a glimmer of hope in the form of a new treatment. A procedure called MRI Guided Focused Ultrasound is now being offered in Australia. This technique uses focused ultrasound waves to target a region in the brain known as the Thalamus to interrupt the pain signals.
Ms Morton has a 50/50 chance of finding relief through this procedure.
