Definition

Noun: * Trigeminal neuralgia: A chronic pain condition affecting the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from the face to the brain. It is characterized by sudden, severe, electric shock-like or stabbing facial pain.

Usage

• Medical Diagnosis: The term is used primarily in medical contexts to diagnose or describe a specific neurological disorder.
  • The patient was diagnosed with tic douloureux after describing episodes of excruciating facial pain.
• Describing Symptoms: It is used to specify the nature of the neuralgic pain.
  • Her symptoms were consistent with tic douloureux, involving brief, intense spasms of pain on one side of her face.

Advanced Usage

• The term tic douloureux is of French origin, meaning "painful tic" or "painful spasm," which describes the sudden, twitch-like onset of the pain. In contemporary medical English, trigeminal neuralgia is the more commonly used clinical term.

Variants and Related Words

• Trigeminal Neuralgia (n): The modern, more frequent synonym for tic douloureux.
• Fothergill's Disease (n): An older, eponymous term for the same condition.
• Neuralgia (n): A broader term for nerve pain, of which tic douloureux is a specific type.

Synonyms

• Trigeminal neuralgia
• Fothergill's disease
• Prosopalgia (a less common term for facial pain)

Related Phrases

• Facial neuralgia: A general phrase for nerve pain in the face, which can include tic douloureux.
  • The doctor investigated the cause of her facial neuralgia.

Noun

1. intense paroxysmal neuralgia along the trigeminal nerve