Pharmacological treatment of facial spasm mainly relies on some anticonvulsant drugs, such as carbamazepine, phenytoin sodium, oxcarbazepine, gabapentin, etc. These drugs work mainly by reducing the excitability of the facial nerve cell membrane and inhibiting the occurrence and spread of abnormal high-frequency discharges. Unfortunately, however, less than 10% of patients respond effectively to the drugs in practice. These drugs do not help the vast majority of patients. It is actually misleading to be told that Gamma Knife can treat facial spasms. Because the gamma knife is essentially a focused high-energy radiation (gamma rays), it works by creating radioactive damage at the target site. If you really take gamma rays to irradiate the facial nerve, resulting in partial necrosis of the facial nerve, your facial twitching is stopped, but the facial muscles are paralyzed, no longer obedient, you say it is not worth the loss? The term “injection” actually refers to botulinum toxin therapy. Botox is a toxin secreted by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can block the signal transmission between the facial nerve and the facial muscles. After Botox is injected locally into the facial muscles, it is like disconnecting the telephone line in your home, no matter how many times the outside phone calls in, the phone will never ring again. This treatment sounds good, but there are several drawbacks to its practical application: (1) because its principle is to block the nerve-muscle signal connection, the patient’s facial expression is stiff and unnatural after injection, which is actually a slight facial paralysis; (2) the effect of Botox can only be maintained for 3-6 months, and it needs to be injected repeatedly after it fails (but the interval between injections must not be shorter than 6 months); (3) after multiple injections, the efficacy decreases. After multiple injections, the efficacy decreases. Therefore, we only recommend this therapy for patients of advanced age and poor health. For patients younger than 70 years old, microvascular decompression surgery for the pathogenesis of the disease is the preferred option prevailing worldwide, which we will describe in detail later in the Q&A. As for the mentioned Chinese acupuncture for facial spasm, we haven’t even seen any successful cases yet, so if you have any information on this, you are very welcome to provide us with it.