Description:

Unilateral or bilateral craniocervical pain with variable presentation, with or without sensory changes, attributed to a demyelinating lesion of the central ascending connections of the trigeminal nerve in a person with multiple sclerosis. It commonly remits and relapses.

Diagnostic criteria:
  1. Facial and/or head pain fulfilling criterion C1
  2. Multiple sclerosis has been diagnosed, with MRI demonstration of a demyelinating lesion in the brain stem or ascending projections of the trigeminal nuclei
  3. Pain has developed in temporal relation to to the demyelinating lesion, or led to its discovery
  4. Not better accounted for by another ICHD-3 diagnosis.
Note:

Pain may be paroxysmal or continuous.

Comment:

Non-painful sensory abnormalities (usually dysaesthesia but also hypaesthesia, anaesthesia, hypalgesia, paraesthesia, etc) may coexist with pain in 13.13.1 Central neuropathic pain attributed to multiple sclerosis.