Hospital highlights work of neurosurgeon

HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital said Dr. Michael Horowitz is one of only a handful of neurosurgeons in the country providing surgical treatment for the rare condition Geniculate neuralgia.

“These people have very painful, deep ear pain, Horowitz said in a video produced by the hospital. “And it’s typically described by them that they feel like there is an icepick or knife jabbed into their deep ear.”

The surgeon said the condition is caused by blood vessels putting pressure on nerves in the ear and by the dysfunction of a facial, sensory nerve called the nervus intermedius.

“So, the way we treat that problem is we move the blood vessels off of the fifth nerve and the ninth and the tenth nerves because they also supply sensation to the ear canal, and we go and we cut the small nerve, called the nervus intermedius, which literally has the thickness of a hair.”

Horowitz said the surgery is effective in over 90% of the people who undergo the procedure.