The Two Faces Of Pain We Live With

By Author: Er David Richard
Total Articles: 2
Comment this article

The International Association for the Study of any and all types of Pain defines PAIN as: An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage that can be described in terms of such damage.
For the purposes of discussing Chronic and/or Acute Facial Pain Disorders, it is useful to distinguish between these two basic types of pain, acute and chronic, and they differ greatly.
Acute pain, for the most part, results from disease, inflammation, or injury to tissues. This type of pain generally comes on suddenly, for example, after trauma or surgery, and may be accompanied by anxiety or emotional distress.
Chronic pain is widely believed to represent disease itself. It can be made much worse by environmental and psychological factors. Chronic pain persists over a longer period of time rather than acute pain and is resistant to most medical treatments. It can—and often does—cause severe and debilitating additional problems for patients.  
Facial Pain Disorders are often considered ACUTE and/or CHRONIC
Chronic Facial Pain is a syndrome encompassing a wide ...
... group of facial pain symptoms which can feature as similar in-nature and cause or dissimilar and atypical, with each set of symptoms displaying several separate causes and/or effects.
Facial pain is typically described as a burning, aching or cramping sensation, which usually affects one side of the face early-on in the disorder, often in the region of the trigeminal nerve and as the disease progresses, often extends into the upper neck or back of the scalp.
Some of these disorders can progress into a condition called “severe trigeminal neuralgia”, as defined and categorized by the National Association of Insurance Underwriters.
Severe Trigeminal Neuralgia is described by patients as a constant, agonizing and acute painful disease - with few, if any periods of remission.
Recent studies propose that the major portion of these various acute and chronic facial pain disorders are in reality, an early form of trigeminal neuralgia; with some patients exhibiting components of both “acute typical facial pain sensations” and “severe trigeminal neuralgia” symptoms.
In some cases, a low-grade inflammation or infection attacks the sinuses cavities or teeth development.
Some studies postulate that these inflammatory or infectious stages can occur over a long period of time, resulting in permanent nerve damage, thereby becoming the trigger for the on-set of Acute and/or Chronic Facial pain disorders.
Most Dentists in Los Angeles, California agree that either dental-related issues or some sort of physical medical trauma is also linked to chronic facial pain.
Diagnosing atypical, chronic facial pain symptoms is not an easy task.
It's not unusual for patients with some or all of the chronic facial pain symptoms to have undergone numerous dental procedures with multiple Dentistry Specialists, seen multiple medical doctors and undergone many medical tests before being successfully diagnosed and treated.
A diagnosis of this debilitating condition is usually a process of elimination; for example, when a patient complains of constant facial pain restricted to one side of the face, the physician must first rule out any other conditions.
Some of the diagnostic tests can include roentgenograms of the skull, MRI and/ or CT scan with particular attention to the skull base, careful dental and otolaryngology evaluation, and thorough neurological examination.
Only after many diagnostic tests rule out other factors can a diagnosis such as Chronic Facial Pain Disorders be made. If you are experiencing acute or chronic pain radiating predominately on one side of the face, please immediately contact both your Medical Doctor and your Family Dentist to identify potential symptoms.

Schedule an appointment with a New York Dentist. Stop by TopDoc America where you can find a seasoned Dentist New York for your needs.