Facial tightness months after concussion
 

Hi everyone, new person here! Been searching for info on this symptom, but no real luck!

So I had a mild concussion in early May - silly me bent over to pick something up and forgot how close I was to the house - bonked the top left of my head on the brick wall. :Doh:

Anyway, brushed it off then as the pain went away after a few minutes, but the next day started getting classic concussion symptoms (headaches, light-sensitive, ringing-in-ears), so took myself to hospital. Passed all the cognitive/motor function tests so the doc told me it was just a mild concussion and I just needed to get some rest. Lots of fatigue and insomnia for a few weeks, but eventually everything seemed to improve.

However, one symptom persists. I have a strange, intermittent sensation of muscle or skin tightness on the right side of my face. It's generally near the eye and in the check area, sometimes down to the top lip. It feels a bit similar to what happens if you put an astringent like witch hazel on your skin. There's no paralysis - though at its worst I sometimes notice my right eye doesn't open quite as much as the left (though this is only a very, very subtle difference). This symptom only showed up a few weeks after the concussion, but I'm pretty sure it's related, as I did occasionally experience some brief tingling down the right side of my face in that first week.

I got freaked out enough by this to ask my GP for a referral to get an MRI - but that came up all clear, which certainly calmed me down a lot. After that it did seem to become much less frequent, but recently it's worsened again. Trying to work out what triggers it and I think stress and tiredness definitely seem to be the biggest factors. Experimenting with diet and different levels of exercise has been frustratingly inconclusive.

Soooo, after Googling the hell out of this, I'm assuming it's some kind of facial nerve damage, but not sure if I should just ride it out, or whether I should be seeking out a neurologist (if only for reassurance that it's not serious!)

Anyone else experience this weirdness? Fortunately it doesn't stop me from doing things like many other concussion symptoms can, but it's always a disturbing reminder that something's still not quite right in the old noggin!

Welcome VicR :Tip-Hat: Someone will be along.

VicR,

Not facial nerve damage. Stress and inflammation of the cranial nerve that controls that part of the face. The cranial nerves come out of your neck.

Sounds like maybe the 7th cranial nerve. You may have jammed your neck when you bumped it. Or, a jerking reaction to the hit could have tweaked your neck.

An upper cervical chiropractor or physical therapist might be helpful. The therapy should be very gentle. No neck popping/cracking.


These Are the 12 Cranial Nerves and Their Functions

Thanks Mark in Idaho. Yes, all the signs point to that 7th nerve!

I guess it's possible I may have done something to my neck, and not realised it as I was definitely more focused on the impact site. I do remember a week after the accident, I very briefly (like just for one afternoon) had pain in my left shoulder when I turned my head to the left. That was shortly after having a very stressful phone call with some very unhelpful customer support which made my other symptoms at the time noticeably worse.

So scary how such a seemingly minor bump (didn't even leave a mark, and pain went away within minutes!) can cause such long-term effects!

Fortunately I already have a physio appointment next week (unrelated lower back thing) - I'll see if he can do anything that might help. :)

Update: facial tightness still persists after trying several things (diet changes, physio, chiro, acupuncture, etc), so finally saw a neurologist about it He ordered a new MRI as the old one wasn't detailed enough to see what was going on with the trigeminal nerve.

New MRI suggests a vascular loop touching the trigeminal is the cause. As I'm now so used to the symptoms (and generally don't even notice it anymore unless I focus on it) and it's not stopping me from doing anything, I'm just going to leave it be and cross fingers that it doesn't worsen or develop into neuralgia in the future!