For nearly four years, Salman Khan kept his nerve disorder close to his chest and continued to work even though at times he felt an ‘electric shock’ in a part of his forehead with excruciating pain, the actor disclosed. Salman said he underwent an eight-hour-long surgery for the nerve disorder, Trigeminal Neuralgia on August 31 in the US, though he was initially told it would be only a 30-minute operation.
"I did not want people to know about the surgery as my fans get worried, but the news spread and everybody got concerned about how serious the ailment was," Salman, who is in New Jersey, told Star News.
Sources close to the actor have said that it will take him at least fifteen days to resume work and he has been advised complete rest till then.
"The pain might go in six months or it may take three to four years, it depends. I will have to come back again for check-up."
The 45-year-old actor said he was suffering from the problem for quite sometime.
"The problem started while I was working on Partner (2007). A part of my forehead used to pain, as if somebody had applied electric shock in the area. Gradually the pain extended to my cheek and then throughout the filming of Veer my right jaw pained.
"Its a nerve problem called Trigeminal Neuralgia, which causes this pain. This nerve originates in the brain and is divided into three parts of the face," he said.
Despite the pain, the Bodyguard star continued working and only decided to go to the doctor when it became unbearable.
"The pain disappeared sometime back, but for the past one-and-a-half years it gave me lot of trouble, especially while shooting the climax action scenes of Bodyguard in Patiala. I thought of going to the doctor, I already knew it was Trigeminal Neuralgia," he said.
Salman had left for the US on August 29 for the surgery, which was successfully conducted on Wednesday.
"The surgery was good, they had told me it would be for half-an-hour only, but it lasted 8 hours. The entire procedure took that much time and it was good that it lasted for so long as they could conduct it with patience," Salman said.
Salman said that tests conducted before the surgery revealed there were other problems besides Trigeminal Neuralgia.
"When I got the angiogram done, we came to know that there were two more problems besides Trigeminal Neuralgia -one is AV malformation (abnormal connection between the arteries and veins) and the other is aneurism (bulge in a blood vessel).
"That’s when we found the best of doctors, came to America. They were supposed to do an invasive surgery, but they said that invasive surgery is not required. We got done a laser surgery called Gamma Knife," said Salman.
His film Bodyguard released to a record-breaking response from the audience on August 31. Though the actor is not in the country, he has been keeping track of the box office reports from the US, said actor-politician Raj Babbar, who plays Kareena Kapoor’s father in the film.
