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Neuralgia

Neuralgia is not a disease but a symptom. It is pain that originates in a nerve of sensation (sensory nerve).

Normally, a sensory nerve carries electrical impulses to tell the brain that something has happened outside the nerve. This can cause pain, but that pain serves a useful warning purpose. Neuralgia is a local pain, usually severe, and felt in the area of the body from which a nerve normally carries sensation. However, it is pain caused by damage to the nerve itself, not by something being done to the part of the body that it serves.

An example of severe neuralgia is trigeminal neuralgia. This is an acute, one-sided facial pain that originates in the nerve that conveys sensation from one-half of the face.