Trigeminal Neuralgia has episodes of severe, shooting or jabbing pain that may feel like an electric shock. 1. Spontaneous attacks of pain or attacks triggered by things like touching the face, chewing, speaking, and brushing teeth. 2. Bouts of pain lasting from a few seconds to several seconds 3. Episodes of several attacks lasting days, weeks, months or longer ? some people have periods when they experience no pain. 4. Pain in areas supplied by the trigeminal nerve (nerve branches), including the cheek, jaw, teeth, gums, lips, or less often the eye and forehead. Doctors usually can effectively manage trigeminal neuralgia with medications, injections or surgery. Since your father was treated medically with Carbamazepine (Mazatol), the surgery may be a good option as per the treating doctor. The goal of surgery for trigeminal neuralgia is either to stop the blood vessel from compressing the trigeminal nerve, or to damage the trigeminal nerve to keep it from malfunctioning. Damaging the nerve often causes temporary or permanent facial numbness, and with any of the surgical procedures, the pain can return months or years later. Usually the pain increases during Fall and Spring seasons. If you are saying the surgery is done by RF, we guess it is Radiofrequency ablation of the nerve. Percutaneous stereotactic radiofrequency thermal rhizotomy (PSRTR) selectively destroys nerve fibers associated with pain. An electrode is heated until it damages the nerve fibers, creating an area of injury (lesion). Almost everyone who undergoes PSRTR has some facial numbness after the procedure.