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!