Hi.
Welcome to HEALTHCARE MAGIC..
I have gone through your query and can understand your concerns..
As per your complain as your mother was prescribed with
Tegretol which has the active ingredient
Carbamazepine which is an anticonvulsant drug and is used as First Line Drug for the treatment of pain due to
Trigeminal Neuralgia as well as
Gabapentin and amytriptyline which are second line drugs which can relieve the neuralgic pain and in case if nothing works for her you need to consult a Neurophysician and get her evaluated and if required he can advise you to get an MRI or
CT SCAN done to rule out the exact cause of trigeminal neuralgia and the most common is an artery compressing over the nerve..
Other causes can be any tumour compressing the nerve,
multiple myeloma, facial injury causing trauma to the
trigeminal nerve etc..
In case of compression of the nerve with an artery or tumour the decompression of the nerve by surgical procedure can help..
In other conditions where pain is not caused by any compression certain techniques like GAMA KNIFE SURGERY, BALLOON COMPRESSION or RADIO-FREQUENCY THERMAL LESIONING are a few techniques in which the nerve is damaged to reduce pain and in this case if there is a relapse repetition of treatment can be done..
Hope this information helps..
Thanks and regards..
Dr.Honey Nandwani Arora..