Pain is frequent in diabetic neuropathy and is hard to manage. Antiepileptic drugs have been used in treating pain for several decades now. Nevertheless, their effectiveness when used as analgesics in painful diabetic neuropathy still remains controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis for determining which antiepileptic drug had the best analgesic potential for managing pain in patients suffering from painful diabetic neuropathy. The search covered the Cochrane, MEDLINE, EMBASE and LILACS databases, between January 1966 and September 2005. The following information was obtained from each article: criteria for diagnosing diabetic neuropathy, patients' age average, antiepileptic drug received and dose, sample size, duration of the disease and treatment follow-up, outcome measurement, evaluation of pain and rescue medication. A combined 2.33 RR (95% CI 1.88–2.88) was obtained. The corresponding NNTs were established for evaluating effectiveness as analgesic; pregabalin was shown to be the antiepileptic drug having the lowest (NNT = 3.24 and 2.12–6.81 95% CI) for achieving greater than 50% analgesia in patients suffering from painful diabetic neuropathy. The combined result of this meta-analysis indicated that the antiepileptic drugs studied were effective for controlling pain in diabetic neuropathy. Selection of a specific agent should rely on considerations such as the side effects all these drugs have.