Why Do I Have Facial Pain?

There’s no apparent injury on the outside, yet you’re in agony due to facial pain, and you want answers and relief. Outside of trauma, there are several ways in which you can develop facial pain, which often feels worse than other types of pain thanks to its proximity to your central nervous system (your brain) and all of your senses.

As a leading neurologist, Miami Neuroscience Center’s Dr. Aizik L. Wolf has considerable experience helping patients struggling with facial pain, especially pain related to trigeminal neuralgia.

In the following, we take a closer look at trigeminal neuralgia and some other possibilities behind non-traumatic facial pain.

The nerves in your face

Before we tackle the different causes of facial pain, it can be helpful to get a basic idea of the nerves involved in it.

You have 12 pairs of cranial nerves that service your head, neck, and torso, and these nerves provide you with sensation and power your senses, such as sight, smell, and sound. Cranial nerves also help you move muscles, such as when you blink your eyes or move your tongue.

When we refer to pairs, each nerve splits and serves one side of your body and brain.

The singular facial pain of trigeminal neuralgia

One of the most common drivers of facial pain not related to injury or trauma is trigeminal neuralgia (TN), which affects about 4-13 people out of every 100,000 annually.

With TN, one of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves we referenced above is pinched or compressed — your trigeminal nerves. These cranial nerves have three branches responsible for sensations in your face's upper, middle, and lower areas.

In most cases, TN develops only on one side of your face and, as we mentioned, occurs when a section of the nerve becomes compressed, which can lead to sharp, zapping and/or burning pain on one side of your face. These flashes of pain can occur one after the other and are often instigated by vibration or touch, though they can flare up without touching your face.

Again, the symptoms of TN typically only develop on one side of your face, and the pain can be very intense. In less common cases of TN, people develop an ongoing ache in their faces.

The good news is that we can solve trigeminal neuralgia through surgery, during which Dr. Wolf relieves the compression on your trigeminal nerve.

Other roads to facial pain

While TN may be responsible for a large share of facial pain that’s not related to trauma, there are certainly other culprits. 

Heading this list are dental issues, such as an abscess or infection in the roots of your teeth, which can lead to excruciating facial pain. Also, if you have a temporomandibular joint disorder (the tiny hinge joints on either side of your jaw), you can experience facial pain.

There's also a condition known as atypical facial pain, which affects about 1% of the population. This type of facial pain is tricky as there’s no obvious cause, such as a dental issue or cranial nerve compression. Medical experts believe that depression may play a role in atypical facial pain.

Whatever is causing the issue, facial pain is certainly one symptom that's hard to ignore and can greatly impact your quality of life. The best path forward is to have an expert take a look to identify what's causing the facial discomfort so that you can get some much-needed relief.

To get started, we invite you to contact our office in South Miami, Florida, to schedule a consultation.