Atypical facial pain and other pain syndromes. Differential diagnosis and treatment.

Knowledge of each differential diagnosis of prosopalgia is important to any neurosurgeon who treats facial pain. Pain control is possible with treatment specific to the diagnosis, including those forms of facial pain known to be the most difficult to treat. An outline for the management of atypical facial pain, anesthesia dolorosa, and postherpetic neuralgia is presented with a review of the correlative anatomy for each surgical procedure.