Glopharyngeal neuralgia (GPN) is a rare condition that can cause severe pain or shooting pain in the throat area near the tonsils, middle ear, or back of the tongue. Pain is felt along the route of glopharyngeal nerve, which is located deep in the neck.... Attacks of severe pain occur suddenly or with swallowing.... The exact cause of this complication is not known.. but this type of problem often occurs due to the pressure of a blood vessel inside the skull.. It is also possible to get this disease in people with throat or neck cancer. What is glopharyngeal neuralgia?.. The severe pain that is felt in this group of patients is due to nerve damage.. The glopharyngeal nerve is the ninth cranial nerve that originates from the brain stem inside the skull and causes sensation in the back of the throat, part of the ear and tongue. When the glopharyngeal nerve is stimulated and a severe attack like an electric shock is felt in the tongue, back of the throat, tonsils or ear. Initially, you may experience short, mild attacks....sometimes the neuralgia develops into longer attacks and severe pain....Pain from glopharyngeal neuralgia can resemble trigeminal nerve pain and is sometimes misdiagnosed. What are the symptoms of glopharyngeal neuralgia? Patients describe the attack as a burning or shooting pain that lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes. Things like swallowing, talking, chewing, yawning, talking or laughing contribute to such symptoms. Some people feel like they have a sharp object in their throat.... Pain usually has the following characteristics: - It affects one side of the throat. - It can last from a few days to a few weeks, followed by a healing process that continues for months or years. - You may have pain several times during the day, leading to inability to perform daily activities. About 10% of patients also experience life-threatening symptoms of irregular heartbeat due to vagus nerve involvement, as follows: - pulse reduction - Sudden drop in blood pressure - syncope - convulsions Some activities may cause pain, including the following: - Drinking cold liquids - touching the gums - Chewing - Swallow - sneezing or coughing - Smoothing the throat Sometimes people with this disease may refrain from eating, chewing or drinking... because they are afraid of starting pain attacks... such conditions can lead to weight loss over time. Generally, only one side of the head is affected....Painful and severe attacks of this disease lead to life-threatening symptoms such as fainting, slow heart rate or arrhythmia....In very rare cases, cardiac arrest sometimes occurs in people without painful symptoms. What is the cause?.. Most of the time, there is no specific reason for glopharyngeal neuralgia (GPN).. Compression of the glopharyngeal nerve by a blood vessel near the brainstem leads to nerve irritation and ultimately pain. In some other cases, a long styloid (neck bone near the nerve) can cause pain, known as eagle syndrome. Trauma following injury or surgery is sometimes involved in glopharyngeal neuralgia... Other possible causes include infection, vascular malformations, and tumors.... MS patients may experience glopharyngeal or pharyngeal-lingual neuralgia following the breakdown of the myelin sheath and fatty membrane that surrounds the nerve. How is it diagnosed? The location of the pain can be important in the diagnosis of glopharyngeal neuralgia, because other diseases such as trigeminal neuralgia have similar symptoms to this disease. There is no specific test that can diagnose this disease... An examination by an ear, nose and throat specialist may be required to rule out other possible disorders. The doctor stimulates certain areas such as the tonsils or the back of the tongue to see if pain is felt and asks the patient if certain activities such as talking or chewing lead to pain. To determine whether a tumor or blood vessel is pressing on the nerve, an MRI or CT scan is recommended for the patient. For more information, read the article on occipital neuralgia. What is the treatment of the lingual pharyngeal nerve? In most cases, anticonvulsant drugs are considered as the first line of treatment... If the drug treatment is not effective or the patient has annoying side effects caused by the drug, finally surgery is performed for him. Pain specialists try to improve the patient with non-surgical methods... If there is no improvement for surgery, they are referred to other doctors. ### Medications - anticonvulsant drugs - Antidepressants - anesthetics ### Surgery Performing several surgeries can help to resolve this complication.. The most common method is microvascular decompression. If the tumor is under pressure or Eagle syndrome is diagnosed, another type of surgery may be necessary for the patient. What people are affected by this disease? Glopharyngeal neuralgia is very rare compared to other facial pain syndromes. This disease occurs more in women than men... It usually affects middle-aged and elderly people.