First of All, I am so glad I found this forum, my husband was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia 1 week ago. It all started about 2 weeks ago with a "tooth ache" he, whom does not have a cavity, thought that at his 43 years of age got his first cavity, me not having one tooth without filling insisted that I had never suffered so much pain for a cavity, not even now that need to go in for a root canal treatment. On December 25th the intense pain got him out of bed, the next morning we made an appointment with the dentist who took 4 xrays and told him he had no cavities, and maybe he had an ear infection or had a sinus problem, since he explained his pain was on the right side of his face, it was 1pm and we decided to go to the er, they did a cad scan and decided he needed to be transferred to a hospital where a neurologist could see him, they thought he had a stroke or was about to have one, because the cad scan showed what appeared to be a block vein and they related is facial pain to a stroke. After being transferred to a trauma hospital and get an MRI done, the doctors said he had no stroke, although he had a vein that was considerably larger that on the other side, but they said that his pain was not related to that so they finally diagnosed him with Trigeminal Neuralgia, which after reading some of the threads here now makes sense, but was very scary at the beginning, specially because we have never heard of it. We didn't leave the hospital until December 30th, the doctors explained to us about the type of medication he would have to be in, the anticonvulsant and also and antidepressant, they prescribed gabapentin 900mg 3 times a day, and amitriptyline 25 mg 1 time per day. Is being about 10 days now and he felt like the pain has not gone away so the family doctor prescribed Lyrica, but insisted he needs to see a neurologist. We still have to visit one, we also have to make an appointment at a "headache clinic" in Philadelphia.
In some way I think we have being lucky that he was diagnosed fairly quick without loosing any tooth, but at the same time, I hope that we find the right medication for him without getting into other issues due to the side effects, ( I am in shock with the possible side effects of some of these medications) and to be able to control the pain, is devastating to see him suffer and not being able to help.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write about your own experiences, it does make a difference in people like us, knew to this and not knowing where to turn or what to do.
thank you

I was diagnosed with TN in April 2003. I thought the same thing - dental problems - but I was fortunate as well because my doctor diagnosed the TN right away.

The unfortunate part for me was that he put me on amitriplyne and I didn't know that another medication would work better - for me. The 4 years I was on amitriplyne, were the worse years of my life. Finally, I went to a new doctor and told them to put me on carbomazapine (sp?) because I couldn't handle the pain any longer. It worked really well for me - I was able to function much better.

I still had the pain, but certainly not as bad.

In March of 2008, I decided to go for the Balloon Compression. I was very fortunate in that the pain went away immediately and I've been pain-free since. There is a 40% chance it will come back, but I will just go back in for the same procedure.

I wish your husband all the best and I hope his meds work for him. If not, remember there are other alternatives.

Good luck!

Judy you're lucky you can take Carbamazepine. I had the weirdest side effect on that medication that I stopped it only on day 2 of taking it, but I also poorly reacted to Neurontin (Gabapentin) and Topiramate (I think it's called?).

There were 3 anti convulsants in any event that I failed on

I'm really glad to hear the balloon compression worked for you. I wonder if anything like that would work in my situation. My MS is what drives this beast, so it's very hard to say.