Woman lives with excruciating ‘suicide disease’ that has no treatment on NHS
The London mum says she sometimes has to get sedated to get through the pain attacks
In January 2023, Gabrielle De’Athe started experiencing pain around her mouth and cheek and just ‘thought it was tooth problems’.
The 34-year-old had repeated visits to the dentists with a ‘few root canals’ but was told ‘there’s nothing wrong’.
However, her health continued to deteriorate as the pain became excruciating, causing her to pass out and landing her in hospital. But the London mum says doctors ‘were brushing it off’ as something wrong with her teeth.
And as the pain attacks over two years, it wasn’t until May 2025 that Gabrielle was diagnosed with Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia (ATN) – a condition so painful it’s commonly dubbed the ‘suicide disease’.
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This features short but unpredictable attacks of a sudden, severe facial pain caused by the compression of the trigeminal nerve inside the skull.
Gabrielle describes the pain as ‘like being electrocuted and stabbed repeatedly in the face’.
Having waited another year for surgery to cure her, the woman was diagnosed with Paroxysmal Hemicrania in November 2025, a debilitating one-sided headache affecting the area around the eye.
And she says her body has stopped responding to pain medication, adding that she experiences seizures after being placed on anti-epilepsy medication.
Her condition is made worse by the wind and cold so she is often restricted indoors.
“It's taken over my life. Over the last six months it deteriorated rapidly and I don't have much of a quality of life,” Gabrielle explains.
"There are no words to describe [the pain]. I have two children and I'd rather have 10 babies back-to-back than go through this pain. It makes childbirth look like nothing.”
She says that ‘as soon as’ she goes outside and the cold win touches her face, it ‘causes an attack’, meaning she’s pretty much ‘become a recluse’ in the bad weather with the pain attacks able to last for days.
"I do still have the attacks in the summer but they're not as severe and warmer weather really helps me,” she adds.
"Even down to brushing my teeth triggers me and eating and people touching my face. The smallest things trigger me so it's really hard to manage because they're everyday things we have to do.
"I've lost who I am. I had a brilliant social life and was always out. Because it's neurological, it's really impacted by stress. I'm constantly worrying about my next attack, which brings on attacks.”
On some occasions, Gabrielle is able to manage her attacks at home, but during others she has to go to the hospital where they ‘sedate me because they don’t know how to treat it’.
“It's horrible because I feel useless. I sit there thinking 'please don't let me wake up when this happens, I just can't do this anymore'. I feel like a burden on people and I can't be the mum I used to be,” she adds.
The former aesthetician had to give up her job because it ‘wasn’t safe’ for her to work anymore.
And now she has set up a GoFundMe in the hopes of raising £40,000 for advanced surgery in the US that she says could ‘get my life back’.
Aiming to raise enough for the ‘life changing’ complex facial procedure, she also hopes to raise awareness about chronic pain conditions.
“People with chronic pain conditions unfortunately do end up on opioids and the reality is we do become dependent,” she says.
"It doesn't make us a 'druggy' but we live with excruciating pain and should be treated like humans.
“Unfortunately, you're not when you're diagnosed with an illness like this. They strip you of your pride.
"The only advice I can give is you have to keep fighting because [doctors] will overlook you. At times I feel like I'm going mad with this."
Always seek advice from a healthcare professional if you have any concerns.
Topics: Health, Mental Health, GoFundMe
Jess Battison