I am new to the group. I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia for the longest! It was not until 2006 that Dr. Mohan stated that was an early sign of MS. My husband and family did not want to believe it, but 2 years later went to another neurologist and she confirmed it!!! I am so tired of being in pain everyday. I understand people like it cold. I cannot stand cold. I sleep with the heating pad on the right side of my face. I was given neurontin; which I take 2 at night and it does help me sleep. I cannot take it during the day as I have to work. I do use capzacin. I'd rather it burn than be in pain. Unfortunately, it makes my face red when I put it on. The paind in my head feels like needles prickling my head. The face pain is like that but sometimes it feels like an elephant kicking me in the face!!!

I'm so sorry that you're suffering Carlisa. Have a look at the reply above my post here, and your post above. Hopefully you will find some information there to suit you too.

Welcome to NeuroTalk Carlisa, nice to meet you. I'm so sorry for both of your DX, especially TN, because that is so painful. I hope that you and your Doc find the right combo of meds to help you.

I'm glad you found us and I hope we can get to know and help each other..

I have had trigeminal neuralgia since the early 90's. I suppose there are varying degrees of severity because I was easily controlled with Tegretol. When I was first put on it and with each increase in dose I was pretty drowsy but that would go away in about 2 weeks. I guess it would be considered an abuse of the drug but sometimes when I can't sleep I take an extra dose of it. Since it is more milligrams than I take every night it does help me sleep. I take 200 mg in the morning and 400 mg at night.