Carbamazepine for acute and chronic pain.

Two small trials have shown carbamazepine to be beneficial in the treatment of diabetic neuropathic pain. Carbamazepine shows similar clinical effect to gabapentin (Neurontin) and phenytoin (Dilantin), but there have been no head-to-head trials directly comparing these drugs. Carbamazepine is effective in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and may be effective for other types of neuropathic pain, but the data are limited. Carbamazepine is not beneficial for the treatment of acute pain.