Trigeminal Neuralgia – Radiation Concerns

Transcript

Stereotactic radiosurgery used for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia automatically brings up in most patients a lot of concerns about radiation. “Is it going to make me sick? Am I going to lose my hair? What are the side effects of radiation to my brain or body?” Those are a lot of misconceptions about radiation harking back to decades before. Modern radiation is completely different. Patients don’t lose their hair. The amount of radiation seen by the brain or the rest of the body is very, very small – almost negligible. All of the radiation is really controlled and focused with use of very, very expensive and powerful computers to just a small sphere (about four millimeters in size.) A lot of the fears and concerns that people have surrounding radiation really aren’t true for this kind of treatment. It’s a very, very different treatment than radiation say for cancer or radiation for other types of disorders like tumors.