The brain is connected to the body by the spinal cord with spinal nerves sending and receiving impulses and messages to and from the brain. However, there are twelve cranial nerves that directly connect to the body. These nerves are involved with the muscle and sensory function of the head and neck. (The exception is cranial nerve X or the vagus nerve, which is also responsible for the parasympathetic system of the chest and abdomen).

The trigeminal nerve (cranial nerve V) is so named because it has three (tri) branches responsible for face sensation; one branch also regulates chewing.

• The ophthalmic branch (V₁) is responsible for sensation from the scalp, forehead, upper eyelid and tip of the nose.
• The maxillary branch (V₂) sensation covers the lower eyelid, the side of the nose, the upper lip and cheek, and the upper teeth and gums.
• The mandibular branch (V₃) is responsible for sensation of the lower teeth and gums, lower lip, chin, jaw, and part of the ear. It is also responsible for supplying the muscles involved with chewing (mastication), those muscles involved with chewing.

Trigeminal neuralgia is inflammation of the trigeminal nerve, causing intense facial pain. It is also known as tic douloureax because the intense pain can cause patients to contort their face into a grimace and cause the head to move away from the pain. The obvious movement is known as a tic.

The pain of trigeminal neuralgia is intense and may be an isolated episode or may be occur every few hours, minutes, or seconds. There can be months or years between attacks, but in some patients whose pain is not well controlled; it can lead to a chronic pain syndrome, affecting activities of daily life and cause depression.

Though it can affect people of any age, trigeminal neuralgia tends to afflict people older than 60 years of age. It affects the right side of the face five times more often than the left.

There are inflammatory causes of trigeminal neuralgia because of systemic diseases includingmultiple sclerosis, sarcoidosis, and Lyme disease. There also is an association with collagen vascular diseases including scleroderma and systemic lupus erythematosus.

The pain is severe and described as an electric shock. It may be made worse by light touch, chewing, or cold exposure in the mouth. In the midst of an attack, affected individuals shield their face trying to protect it from being touched. This is an important diagnostic sign because with many other pain syndromes like a toothache, the person will rub or hold the face to ease the pain.

While there may be only one attack of pain, the person may experience recurrent sharp pain every few hours or every few seconds. Between the attacks, the pain resolves completely and the the person has no symptoms. However, because of fear that the intense pain might return, people can be quite distraught. Trigeminal neuralgia tends not to occur when the person is asleep, and this differentiates it from migraines, which often waken the person.

After the first episode of attacks, the pain may subside for months or years but there is always the risk that trigeminal neuralgia will recur without warning.

• Idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia most often is treated with good success using a single anticonvulsant medication such as carbamazepine (Tegretol).
• Gabapentin (Neurontin, Gabarone), baclofen and phenytoin (Dilantin, Dilantin-125) may be used as second line drugs, often in addition to carbamazepine. In many patients, as time progresses, carbamazepine becomes less effective and these drugs can be used in combination to control the pain.
• Should pain persist and medication fail to be effective, surgery or radiation therapy may be other treatment options.
• Lamotrigine (Lamictal) may be prescribed for multiple sclerosis patients who develop trigeminal neuralgia.