In article <Lk+QDCA0vqgzEw2+ at bnclib.demon.co.uk> Diane Pritchatt <diane at bnclib.demon.co.uk> writes:
There was a paper by Peter Nathan, in Brain 10-15 years ago, about
facial pain in pilots during the 2nd World War. The symptom was associated
with prior dental extractions on the same side, and occurred only when
the extractions had been done with general anaesthesia or no anaesthetic
at all. Extractions done with local anaesthetic were not followed by
facial pain associated with decompression, and Nathan interpreted this
as some kind of "memory" of pain signals that reached the brain stem
when the teeth were pulled. The "recall" was triggered by low pressure,
which stimulates other branches of the trigeminal nerve, presumably in
the paranasal sinuses.
Sorry I can't provide the reference, but I didn't write it down at
the time.
John A. Kiernan
Department of Anatomy
Univ. of Western Ontario
LONDON, Canada N6A 5C1
e-mail: kiernan at uwo.ca
>only the special conditions in an aircraft that triggers it for you? If
>that is the case, you know what to avoid, and hopefully don't travel by
>plane too often.
>>only hits one side of the face and only when in a low pressure environment
>>such as in a jet, and only when the jaw moves. It's an electrical-shock
>>type pain that only lasts for a few seconds, and then that side of my face
