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Monifieth girl, 11, suffers ‘electric shock attacks’ on face due to rare condition

"All we can do is be there for her, sit beside her and hold her hand."

Grace Miller with dad Garry and mum Claire. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson
Grace Miller with dad Garry and mum Claire. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson

The dad of an 11-year-old girl from Monifieth who suffers “electric shock type attacks” on her face says her pain can be so severe that crying makes it worse.

Grace Miller, a pupil at Grange Primary, has trigeminal neuralgia – a nerve condition which causes sudden and severe facial pain.

She first started to experience “tingling” below her right eye in February 2022 – with attacks soon becoming so extreme that she was “lying on the couch shaking in pain”.

Grace’s dad, Garry, 42, describes the episodes as “electric shock-type attacks”.

He says initial MRI scans did not reveal any answers about the cause and by May 2022 the problem had started to disappear on its own.

The paediatrics team at Ninewells had suspected trigeminal neuralgia but Grace had gone into remission before it could be confirmed.

Monifieth girl’s face pain ‘attacks’ can last for over an hour

The Arbroath police sergeant told The Courier: “She was almost back to normal and we thought that was the end of it.

“But in November 2023 the pain came back – she’d had a good 18 months pain-free.

“It first started tingling again and then got worse and worse.

“I’ve read that it mostly affects women over 40 so it has taken a long time to find medications that work for her.

Grace Miller. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson

“She has probably started to go into remission again now and has fewer attacks.

“The attacks cause shooting pain every couple of seconds and the longest one has lasted was an hour and 45 minutes.

“There is not much we can do for her when it happens, a few months ago it was really tough.

“All we can do is be there for her, sit beside her and hold her hand.”

‘Sometimes she doesn’t even cry because the tears cause her even more pain’

Grace – who is also supported by mum Claire, 40, and sister Erin, 14 – takes anti-convulsive and anti-depressant medications to manage her condition.

However, the only thing that can help during an attack is morphine.

Garry said: “When she is really bad the only thing that makes a difference is morphine so for a while one of us had to be pretty much on call to give her it if needed.

“If the dose we are allowed to give her doesn’t work, we do have a direct line to paediatrics.

Grace has been making friendship bracelets to fundraise for Trigeminal Neuralgia Association UK. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson

“She has only been kept in hospital overnight once and that’s when we got the morphine home with us.

“When you see the pain at its worst the morphine is a small price to pay.

“Sometimes she doesn’t even cry because the tears cause her even more pain.”

Garry says there is no cure for the condition, but Grace may be able to undergo different procedures depending on what is causing the pain.

However, doctors are yet to identify why she has developed the problem.

Grace will sell the bracelets at a school fair. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson

Despite what she has been through, Grace has started to raise money for the charity Trigeminal Neuralgia Association UK by making friendship bracelets and is planning to sell them alongside friends at an upcoming school event.

She has also set up an online fundraising page.

Garry says the activity has helped as it is something Grace can “do by herself”.

Footballer Grace ‘determined’ to continue playing

Grace also remains “determined” to continue going to school and football training with Carnoustie Panmure.

Garry said: “This time round she has much more awareness of what is happening.

“From February to Easter, I don’t think there was a week she managed to be at school the whole time.

Grace is ‘determined’ to continue playing football. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson

“It was rare that she would be out completely but we would get calls from the school to say she needed to be picked up.

“The school have been really good and have moved the curriculum about for her so a lot of the educational stuff is in the morning.

“She loves playing football but there have been games she hasn’t been able to play, and other times she has come on in the second half.

“The lowest we have seen her is one day when she realised she wasn’t going to be able to play.”

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