Facial pain

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, but it's often treatable with surgery. 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, and trigeminal rhizotomy, among others.

You can watch a presentation I gave to a Facial Pain Association support group here.

My MVD patient guide and Gamma Knife patient guide describe those procedures in detail.

Below are examples of disorders that I treat:

• Trigeminal neuralgia
• Glossopharyngeal neuralgia
• Sphenopalatine neuralgia
• Status trigeminus
• Trigeminal autonomic cephalgias (e.g. SUNA, SUNCT)

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?
• 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 can be very different than for pain that is constant and never goes away.)
• Do you have any numbness or tingling in your face? Where?
• Are there any other things that happen to your face during a pain attack (eye redness or watering, runny nose, droopy eyelid, etc)?

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.