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Face pain

• Overview
• Treatment

Definition:

Face pain may be dull and throbbing or an intense, stabbing discomfort in one or both sides of the face or forehead.

Considerations:

Pain that starts in the face may be caused by a nerve disorder, an injury, or an infection in a structure of the face. Face pain may also begin elsewhere in the body.

Sometimes face pain occurs for no known reason.

Common Causes:

• Abscessed tooth (continuous throbbing pain on one side of the lower face aggravated by eating or touching)
• Cluster headache
• Herpes zoster (shingles) or herpes simplex (cold sores) infection
• Injury to the face
• Migraine
• Myofascial pain syndrome
• Sinusitis or sinus infection (dull pain and tenderness around the eyes and cheekbones that worsens when bending forward)
• Tic douloureux
• Temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome

• Review Date: 1/18/2007
• Reviewed By: Benjamin W. Van Voorhees, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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