ICD-10 code: G50.0 Trigeminal neuralgia

Your trigeminal nerve is damaged. As a result, you have facial pain.

The trigeminal nerve is on each side of the body, starting in your brain and coursing down the face to the masseter muscles (chewing muscles). The trigeminal nerve enables us to feel sensations on the skin of the face and on the tongue. These sensations include, for example, touch, heat and pain. The trigeminal nerve also runs to the chewing muscles so that we can chew.

Because your trigeminal nerve is damaged you keep getting severe facial pain. When this happens the muscles in the face may sometimes contract, or the eyes may water. The pain usually comes on suddenly. The pain can be triggered by touch, speaking or eating, for example.

The trigeminal nerve may get damaged when a blood vessel presses on it, for example.

Additional indicator

On medical documents, the ICD code is often appended by letters that indicate the diagnostic certainty or the affected side of the body.

• G: Confirmed diagnosis
• V: Tentative diagnosis
• Z: Condition after
• A: Excluded diagnosis
• L: Left
• R: Right
• B: Both sides

Further information

Note

This information is not intended for self-diagnosis and does not replace professional medical advice from a doctor. If you find an ICD code on a personal medical document, please also note the additional indicator used for diagnostic confidence.
Your doctor will assist you with any health-related questions and explain the ICD diagnosis code to you in a direct consultation if necessary.