Trigeminal neuralgia is a disorder of the trigeminal nerve (the fifth cranial nerve) that causes episodes of intense, stabbing, pain resembling an electric shock in the areas of the face where the branches of the nerve are distributed - the eyes, lips, nose, scalp, forehead, upper jaw, and lower jaw. Gloria Steinem contracted the disease in 1994. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce suffered from "facial neuralgia" now called trigeminal neuralgia, from his college years onward.

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