Last week I started feeling
 

Last week I started feeling tingling in my face. Has anyone heard of NP traveling to the face? Or could it be something else? NP has been bothering me in my arms and chest lately, but the face I never expected. I e-mailed my Neurologist but haven't heard back from him yet.

Hi Julie... PN in face... YES!
 

I have had the most excruciatingly painful PN on my poor face. I would always check it in the mirror to make sure it was ok because I couldn't believe the intensity of the pain there. I believe the skin on the face is a tad more sensitive than other areas of the body. I had lighting like pain across my cheeks and on my eyes.

It's not as bad as it use to be. Not as bad by half. But since there are peripheral nerves in the face than the possibilty does exist that anyone with PN may get it in there head/face too.

tingling/numb face
 

can be due to electrolyte imbalance, esp calcium/magnesium.

It can be a sign of anxiety. (usually confined to mouth area)

And it can be a sign of TIA or stroke.

So it is best to evaluate it with a doctor.

I get lots of PN related issues with my face ESPECIALLY when I am very stressed or anxious. Tics, twitches....and extreme tightening around my mouth area when anxious. Mine is not painful, just annoying and scary.

Funny story: when this first started happening with my mouth..i was terrified I was having a stroke. Called my Dr's office and told them I was having "drawing" around my mouth area....should I come in immediately? The nurse sounded a little incredulous but said she thought I would be safe to wait til my next appt. This made me a little incredulous but, hey....

I get to my next appt two weeks later and the nurse had made a notation in my chart that I was experiencing "dryness" around my mouth and had asked if I should come in immediately (probably her way of charting that I'm a nut!)...now that I think about it...while it is funny it is also kind of scary that there was such a miscommunication!

Julie,

My cheeks can be numb or burn. My tongue burns off and on. It is more annoying than painful. I do take B1 which helps with that alot.

Laurie

How odd that you should mention pain in the face. Twelve years ago, in 1995, I got a case of Bells Palsy. I thought I had a stroke, went to the ER and he explains "no, you have Bells Palsy". I said "why"?? and he said "because of your diabetes. ?????? That was a new one for me.

But what annoyed me to no end was the pain in my face. I was on the phone at midnight with some doctor and I was crying and they were trying to calm me down and they were trying to explain that there are tri-geminal nerves in the face, and that these nerves can get inflamed. etc. etc.

I never fully understood this, and the odd thing is that I know many people who had Bells Palsy and none of them had pain. They just had one half of their face paralyzed for the length of their Bells Palsy.

My friend Mary, still has the mouth drooping and it's 20 years later.

My Aunt Annette had to wear a special pair of glasses to keep one eye open after her bout of bells palsy.

Every person I spoke to, well, they never had what I had.

The horrible pain in the face.

Jeez, I will never forget that pain if I live to be 100. The doctor told me to take advil, or ibuprofen. All I wanted to do was lay down and die that first night. I had no idea what hit me.

I put warm compresses, (and because this happened on Palm Sunday), I went the religious route, and I kept pressing the Palms to my face. I swear to god, this is what I did.

A few days later I went to see a neuro person. He took one look at me and says: "you have to have an emg of your face". Now I knew what that was and I was not a happy camper aobut having to have an emg on my face".

He explained that they needed to measure the nerve damage (or some such stuff, this was a long time ago).

Want to know what happened. I was so scared of the emg that I prayed for two weeks straight. I put warm compresses, I took advil.

My appointment for the emg was 3 weeks from that neuro appointment. In two weeks, my face was almost back to normal. No more drooling, No more drooping eyes.

I took a walk over to the neuro guy and he said "oh wow, look at you" and I said "I will not have any emg done". He said "no problem".

But the funniest thing happened way after this.

To look at me one would not know that I ever had Bells Palsy. At least that is what I thought.

Years passed by and I found myself back at a new primary care and the neuro guy I had seen was sharing office space. He was an Asian Doctor.

When i walked in (this was about 2 years after the Bells Palsy thing), I was sitting in the waiting room, the neuro comes in, I recognized him and I said "Oh I know you, I saw you a few years ago". He smiled, took one look at me and said "oh, yeah, you had Bells Palsy". I said "now how on earth can you tell? When I look in the mirror I don't see any change" He laughed and said "look at your eyebrow and then compare it to the other one". I looked in the mirrow and there was just the most imperceptable difference, and I said "Oh yeah, I can see it" From that day on, I compare my eyebrows.

Some days, one is higher than the other one.

Nerves in the face are really nasty when they get inflamed (for any reason).

Thank god, my pain only lasted two weeks.

So I hope you find your answers and get pain relief.

All the best,

Melody

Hi Julie
 

I have it on my face, its horrible, its worse than any other part of my body when it comes on.It started off as the odd 'twinge' or odd 'sensation' on a small part of my face, usually the forehead in 2001, but covered more and more of the face as the years went on, it was mainly on the left side only but spread to the right side recently, I get weird numb spots on my eyelids as well as mainly around the left eye and sometimes weird altered sensations on the cheeks and around the eyes and forehead and also under the chin.It doesn't affect the mouth or tongue. It sometimes almost completely vanishes but comes back for no reason and tends to linger for longer and longer periods as the years have gone on. I had an MRI and they didnt see anything abnormal, no signs of stroke etc. As I said in previous posts I believe mine was caused by toxins but im not 100% sure. I think smoking aggeviated it as since I have stopped for 3 weeks now it seems not to come on so much but it still does come on, im starting to wonder if stress is playing a part in it as well...

I read Mrsd's post, I didn't realise it could be caused by an electrolyte imbalance, esp calcium/magnesium as I took calcium and magnesium tablets a while back and had to stop after 4 days as it made the numbness/altered sensations in my face worse for some reason...

Can you let me know what your neurologist says about it when you hear please. Thanks

Facial PN
 

Hi Julie,

In about my 8th week of PN I started to experience first a slight tingling/tightness around my mouth. A few days later it was a slight warmth and tight feeling on one cheek then a few days later again - the chin (numb) and side of the nose, next the other cheek, then progressively the forehead and this week the temple areas.

They are not painful or distressing, just weird ‘altered’ sensations – so definitely not the trigeminal nerve which to all accounts sounds excruciating.