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Trigeminal neuralgia and other cranial neuralgias comprise a group of facial pain conditions, characterised by disabling pain attacks that selectively respond to specific treatments. Although not as common migraine, they affect over 1% of the population and must be recognised and adequately treated in clinical practice. The spectrum of cranial neuralgias is wide and as a consequence the conditions are managed by a range of different specialists. Studies show that delayed diagnoses and mismanagement are common and can lead to depression and suicide. 36 recognised experts from nine countries have contributed to OPML Trigeminal Neuralgia and Other Cranial Neuralgias to guide you through the maze of pathophysiology, clinical features, diagnosis-making, and condition-specific treatments. The approach is practical and evidence-based and ready for real-world applications. The value of phenotyping, targeted investigations, and treatment algorithms is emphasised. The editors and contributors subscribe to the view that there needs to be a holistic approach with multidisciplinary teams working together and with patients being at the centre of this process. Psychologists and patent support groups can help to ensure that patients are managed holistically and share the decision-making process. Their involvement in the handbook has helped to emphasis this. There remain considerable challenges, but the field is rapidly evolving and there are increasing number of opportunities opening up to improve our understanding of these conditions and hence their management. The editors and contributors have included case scenarios, algorithms, self-administered tools for training in diagnosis and management, clinical tips and carefully chosen references. Each chapter includes a lay summary and key points and can be read as a stand-alone unit.

What is persistent pain? How do we communicate pain, not only in words but in visual images and gesture? How do we respond to the pain of another, and can we do it better? Can explaining how pain works help us handle it? This unique compilation of voices addresses these and bigger questions.Defined as having lasted over three months, persistent pain changes the brain and nervous system so pain no longer warns of danger: it seems to be a fault in the system. It is a major cause of disability globally, but it remains difficult to communicate, a problem both to those with pain and those who try to help. Language struggles to bridge the gap, and it raises ethical challenges in its management unlike those of other common conditions.Encountering Pain shares leading research into the potential value of visual images and non-verbal forms of communication as means of improving clinician–patient interaction. It is divided into four sections: hearing, seeing, speaking, and a final series of contributions on the future for persistent pain. The chapters are accompanied by vivid photographs co-created with those who live with pain.The volume integrates the voices of leading scientists, academics and contemporary artists with poetry and poignant personal testimonies to provide a manual for understanding the meanings of pain, for healthcare professionals, pain patients, students, academics and artists. The voices and experiences of those living with pain are central, providing tools for discussion and future research, shifting register between creative, academic and personal contributions from diverse cultures and weaving them together to offer new understanding, knowledge and hope.Praise for Encountering Pain'A thoughtful and thought-provoking text on the subject of chronic pain, and it makes a meaningful contribution to discourse in the medical humanities. Most importantly, it invites further research into strategies for integrating medicine and the arts for the benefit of patients and clinicians alike.'Medical Humanities (BMJ, IME) blog'An interesting and eclectic mix of contributors from experience, science, arts and historical perspectives...this is an excellent resource'Pain News'This volume could be said to be a guide to conducting successful interdisciplinary research, revealing the remarkable results that can be achieved when those with lived experience are held at the heart of research.'The Polyphony'From a remarkable variety of disciplinary and cultural perspectives – from medicine and therapy to the creative arts and philosophy – this inspirational and eye-opening collection succeeds in articulating the mysterious and overwhelmingly complex sensory experience that is pain. Pain, the encounters in this volume suggest, defies definition; it is subjective and unpredictable; it can be phantom or real. Through its radical and engaging use of testimonies, Encountering Pain never shies away from metaphor and the unfounded fear, that the allegorising of pain will dilute its reality. Examined through a multitude of verbal and non-verbal paradigms, contributors discuss the physicality of pain and its political, administrative and medical regulation; the body's trauma and expressiveness; how pain is transmuted into art. The communication of something that resists being expressed straightforwardly in verbal form metamorphoses, as you read this extraordinarily rich and innovative volume, into a metaphor for life itself, for who we are, how we become social beings by developing empathy and respect for the pain of others, for how we develop and then question through these interactions our sense of identity.'Professor Stella Bruzzi, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, UCL'This book is the result of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation into

Orofacial pain - defined as pain lasting over three months in the mouth or face - is increasing in prevelance, with approximately 7% of the UK population having experienced it. It is currently managed by either dentists or general medical practitioners, both of whom have radically different approaches to treatment. While management of orofacial pain has improved quite dramatically over recent years, it is essential that dentists and general practitioners are aware of these advances and of the differences in their approaches. This concise handbook takes an evidence-based psychosocial approach to the management of patients with pain in the face or mouth and provides basic guidelines to facilitate care quickly in the clinical setting. The book will serve as a useful guide for dental practitioners, specialists in orofacial pain, trainee pain specialists, neurologists with an interest in pain, specialist pain nurses, as well as general medical practitioners.