If you’ve ever had a migraine headache, you don’t need me to tell you it hurts. Doctors report that about twenty million people suffer from serious headaches, and ten percent of these have intractable pain–meaning it doesn’t go away. But here’s a surprise: the problem isn’t always a migraine. Sometimes very similar symptoms are caused by damage to a nerve of the face, which results in the nerve itself sending nonstop “ouch” signals.
如果你曾经有过偏头痛的经历，就不需要我告诉你那有多痛苦。 医生报告，大概有2千万人患有严重头痛，并且他们之中百分之十患有顽固性疼痛——那意味着疼痛不会消失。 但医生们有一个惊奇发现：问题不总是偏头痛。 有时，类似的症状是由脸部神经受损引起的，受损的神经会不间断地疼痛信号。
What can be done?
我们可以做些什么呢？
A new treatment being tried out by a few doctors, including Dr. Robert Levy, a neurosurgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, involves zapping with electricity certain nerves that innervate the face. It’s like a marathon in which thousands of runners are crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Someone sends up a firework nearby and for a moment all the distracted runners stop and stare. By hitting the nerves with a mild electrical jolt, you can “distract” the signal-carriers–that is, the pain signals stop crossing the nerves for as long as the electrical charge is on.
有几个医生正试验一种新的治疗，包括罗伯特莱维博士，他是西北纪念医院的一位神经外科医生，参与到用电流破坏那些刺激脸部的神经。 就像一场马拉松，数千名奔跑的人穿越布鲁克林大桥。 有的人在附近放烟火，这会儿所有的跑步的人都停下来看。 通过一个轻度的电力震动击打神经，你就可以转移信号载波——就是说，疼痛信号停止穿越神经，只要电荷一直处于连接状态。
So how to do that? Levy and others have inserted a little battery under patients’ collarbones, connected it to a wire that runs under the scalp, and stuck the end directly into the misfiring nerve. Odd as it may sound at first, it works. Patients report that when the device is turned on they are pain-free, sometimes for the first time in years. This kind of nerve stimulation is still in its early days, but the results so far look very promising. For chronic headache sufferers, a little wire can make for blessed peace of mind…not pain of head.
那么如何做到这一点呢？ 莱维和其他医生在患者锁骨下面插入了一个小电池，并与头皮下的电线连接，然后把末尾插入神经。 起初也许听起来有点奇怪，它能管用。 患者报告说，当设备接通时，他们感觉不到疼痛，这是多年来第一次。 这种神经刺激仍处于初期，但到目前为止的结果看起来是很有前途的。 对慢性头痛患者来说，一小节电线得到内心的平静……而不是头痛。
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