Facial Pain

 
Dr. Matthew Mian has fellowship training and extensive experience in caring for patients with a wide array of facial pain disorders, including trigeminal neuralgia, and he is a member of the Facial Pain Association

I have a particular interest and specialized training in caring for patients with facial pain, and I am a member of the Facial Pain Association. Facial pain can be debilitating - difficult to diagnose, and even harder to treat. Many of my patients have seen dentists, ENT doctors, pain specialists, neurologists, oral surgeons, and others without relief before they learn what is causing their pain and that surgery may be able to help.

 

I offer a wide variety of procedures, including microvascular decompression, Gamma Knife radiosurgery of the trigeminal nerve and the sphenopalatine (pterygopalatine) ganglion, trigeminal rhizotomy, spinal cord stimulation, trigeminal nerve stimulation, and motor cortex stimulation, among others.

There are a variety of effective therapies for facial pain, and relief from pain can be life-changing. If you suffer from facial pain and live near Denver, please consider meeting me in consultation to learn more about your treatment options.

You can watch a presentation I gave to a Facial Pain Association support group here, and you can click here to read my education packet for new patients I am meeting with trigeminal neuralgia.

Below are the most common disorders that I treat:

When we meet in the office, I will spend much of the time discussing your symptoms, because most facial pain disorders are clinical diagnoses, meaning that they are based on your symptoms and physical exam rather than lab tests or imaging studies. We will review the following questions. It can be helpful to think about them in advance of your visit:

  • When did your pain start?

  • What medications, injections, and/or surgeries have you tried?

  • What does the pain feel like? (e.g. stabbing, shocking, burning, etc)

  • Where in your face do you feel the pain? (be able to draw on a diagram)

  • What triggers the pain?

  • How often do you feel the pain, and how long does it last when it comes?

  • Does it consist of brief attacks or constant pain? Or both? (This is important. Treatment for pain that occurs in episodes or attacks is very different than for pain that is constant and never goes away.)

  • Do you have any numbness in your face? (be able to draw on a diagram)

  • Are there any other things that happen to your face during a pain attack (eye redness or watering, runny nose, droopy eyelid, etc)?