Tegretol - Will it work when other drugs do not?

  My wife has tried elevil, pamelor, nerontin, and baclofen for facial
  pain following a root canal. All have had intolerable side effects
  before reaching dose that is consistently effective. Now doctor wants
  to try tegretol which appears to have worse side effects than the others.
  Is there any realistic chance that this will work better than the
  others?
Dear B. Tivey,
Tegretol is a very popular medication used for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Perhaps if the medication is increased slowly a level could be acheived that would provide analgesia and increase tolerability.  The drug doses used to acheive neuropathic pain are frequently less than the doses needed to control seizures (?the "worse side effects" may occur at the higher doses).  I reccommend giving the medication a trial. Good Luck.