She came to me on the recommendation of a family member. She was 56, from Portola Valley, and she had been living with trigeminal neuralgia for eight years.
If you have never heard of trigeminal neuralgia, it is widely considered one of the most painful conditions a human being can experience. The trigeminal nerve runs across the face, and when it misfires, the result is a sudden, electric, searing pain — often described as one of the worst sensations possible — that can be triggered by something as minor as a light touch, a breeze, chewing, or speaking. It is sometimes called the suicide disease because of how debilitating it can be.
For eight years, this was her life. She was getting 24 Botox injections in her head every three months to try to manage it. She had been through multiple medications, none of which resolved it completely or stopped the episodes. Surgery had been offered as an option, with the caveat that it did not always work. She was losing one to four weeks every month to episodes so severe she could not function — not at work, not at home, not at all. Her neurologist told her this was simply how things were going to be.
She had also been managing extreme fatigue, chronic headaches, hot flashes, and night sweats for years. All of it, she had been told, was part of getting older.
Her family member had seen what was possible. She decided to try.
Where the Pain Actually Came From
Her trigeminal neuralgia had begun after a shingles outbreak. This is a known but underappreciated connection. The varicella-zoster virus, which causes both chickenpox and shingles, can affect cranial nerves including the trigeminal nerve. In some cases, even after the acute shingles infection resolves, the virus leaves the nervous system in a state of chronic irritation that never fully settles. The nerve becomes hypersensitive. The pain becomes its own condition, disconnected from the original infection in the minds of most treating physicians — and so the virus is rarely addressed as part of the ongoing treatment picture.
She was menopausal when she came to see me, and that was not incidental. Estrogen and progesterone are both neuroprotective. They modulate inflammation, support the myelin sheath that insulates nerve fibers, and help regulate immune function in ways that directly affect the body's ability to suppress latent viral activity. When those hormones decline at menopause, the nervous system loses a layer of protection it may have relied on for decades. A virus that had been dormant or controlled can become more active. An already irritated nerve can become more reactive. The inflammatory environment shifts in ways that make resolution harder.
She was not just dealing with a nerve problem. She was dealing with a viral component that had never been addressed, a hormonal environment that was no longer supporting her nervous system, candida overgrowth contributing to her inflammatory load, blood sugar dysregulation adding metabolic stress to an already burdened system, and a cortisol and stress picture that was keeping her body in a state that could not heal.
Without addressing all of it, nothing would have budged. I knew that going in.
What We Did
We looked at the whole picture. The viral component was addressed directly through cellular reset sessions designed to support the body's ability to suppress and clear the underlying viral burden. We addressed the candida. We stabilized her blood sugar. We worked on the stress and cortisol pattern. We supported her hormones. We reduced her inflammatory load systematically and gave her nervous system the environment it needed to finally stop firing.
Within about two months, she had her last episode.
Three years later, the pain has not come back.
Her fatigue resolved. Her headaches stopped. Her hot flashes and night sweats resolved. She describes herself as pain-free, functional, and in possession of a life she had stopped believing she would get back.
In her own words: no amount of money can compensate if you have no health — you have no life. She would do it again without hesitation.
What This Story Illustrates
Trigeminal neuralgia is not a hormone condition. But the hormonal environment of menopause created the conditions in which her nervous system could no longer contain what the virus had started. The inflammation that was no longer being modulated by estrogen and progesterone. The immune dysregulation that comes with declining hormones. The metabolic stress of blood sugar instability compounding an already burdened system. The candida adding its own inflammatory pressure. The cortisol keeping the whole picture stuck.
This is what I mean when I say that hormonal imbalance does not just produce hot flashes and irregular cycles. It changes the terrain of the entire body. It alters the inflammatory environment. It affects immune function. It changes how the nervous system responds to insult and whether it can recover. Conditions that would otherwise remain manageable or dormant can surface or worsen when that terrain shifts.
Eight years of trigeminal neuralgia. Twenty-four Botox shots every three months for several years. Multiple failed medications. Surgery on the table. And a neurologist who said this was just how life was going to be.
What was missing was not more interventions aimed at the nerve. What was missing was someone willing to look at everything that was sustaining the condition — and address it.
If you are in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Atherton, Los Altos, Woodside, Portola Valley, or Redwood City and you have been told there is nothing more that can be done, schedule a Discovery Call.
Related reading:
- Why Hormone Replacement Alone Is Not Enough
- Why Stress Hits Women Over 45 Completely Differently
- What a Complete Lab Panel Reveals That 30 Years of Doctor Visits Missed
- Chronic Inflammation Is Probably Behind Your Fatigue, Brain Fog, and Low Energy
For further reading on trigeminal neuralgia and its relationship to viral infection, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke provides reliable clinical information on the condition.