GOALS AND GUIDELINES

GOALS

• Summarize what is known about Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN), Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia (ATN), Atypical Facial Pain (ATFP) and other related conditions.
• Collect together the experiences of TN, ATN, and ATFP victims.
• Present treatments that have been used to treat these disorders.
• Provide information to people with undiagnosed facial pain which may help them get assistance.
• Present information from a patient's point of view that might assist medical and dentistry professionals to recognize and diagnose facial neuralgias
• Assist families and caregivers of facial pain patients to understand what the patient feels and what they can do to help.
• Engage medical professionals in a dialog concerning research to improve treatment.

GUIDELINES
Possibly the most important thing for new visitors to FNR to keep in mind, is they will find contradicting opinions here. We believe that the current state of knowledge concerning diagnosis and treatment of facial pain disorders is far from complete.

There is disagreement among medical sources about what causes facial neuralgias, and which medical treatments give the best results under what conditions. Patients respond in highly individual ways to various treatments. Although there are treatment success stories for many patients, there are also stories of disaster in failures of diagnosis, mistreatment or medical error which worsen the condition of some. It is our hope as patients, to contribute to higher rates of early diagnosis and treatment success. To do this, we actively seek the assistance of medical professionals, to assess reported results and resolve contradictions.

No single practitioner or group practitioners will have "veto" power on what we choose to offer here. Likewise, we will not allow FNR to become a forum for shouting matches between practitioners or patients who are not listening to each other. By taking this approach, we seek to mediate divergent opinions in a responsible way. We urge patients to recognize that treatment is sometimes as much art as science. And we urge physicians not only to report the "good news" of their successes, but to acknowledge the hard work remaining to assess and standardize treatment regimes on behalf of those for whom treatment has failed.

TREATMENTS
The treatment section of FNR is intended to compile any and all treatments that have been tried for Facial Neuralgias. This includes both treatments that have worked and those that have failed (for individual patients). Basically, we take the approach that any and all treatments will be acceptable for discussion here, both medical and alternative. By "alternative" we mean treatments not endorsed by the general medical community. If they have helped someone, they deserve to be discussed here. On the other hand, if someone was hurt or whose condition worsened by an alternative treatment, that also deserves to be known. The point is not to endorse treatments, but to describe them and document patient reactions to them. We will take special care to warn of any treatment reported to be hazardous for patients.

The decision to include alternative treatments on FNR may raise controversy. We are willing to include such treatments here as long as they are not put in the same category as more traditional, scientifically established treatments. The final call as to which treatments are conventional and which are alternative will be the coordinator's. Our aim is to draw a clear line between the those treatments which the medical establishment endorses, those upon which it has no comment, and those upon which it frowns.. We leave it up to the reader to decide who to believe. As much as possible, we will let the data (or experiences of patients) tell the stories which need to be told here.

JOINING HANDS
The FNR editorial group is comprised of facial pain patients and their family members. While we chose to operate independently from particular doctors and specialties, we actively seek an information exchange with physicians and other medical professionals. We invite specialists across the medical profession to review our site, make suggestions, and offer information. We also invite patients and non-traditional practitioners to share their experience in these terrible disorders. It seems to us that no one branch of medical practice has all of the answers which facial pain patients need. By joining hands, we have a better chance of making progress in the fight to identify, treat and cure these terrible disorders.