What Causes Intermittent Pain In Forehead, Above Eyebrows And Temple Area?

Posted on Thu, 2 Apr 2015

Question: I am a 61 year old female 5 ft. 3 148lb. For the past month, I have had pain that last less than 5 seconds across my forehead - above my eyebrows, and down the side of my temples. This happens off and on throughout the day isn't so painful maybe like a throb does not last long at all. Also, my eyes ache and sometimes in the morning when waking I have trouble opening my eyelids. This has happened in the past but stopped but is happening again. I have dry eyes and I have stopped wearing contacts and have been wearing large glasses so I wondered if that could cause my eye pain they changed my prescription just a little. For years I have had ringing in my ears and now it seems I can hear a beat, ringing in my ears never stop. I also have just notice symptoms of a gum swelling way above my right eye tooth up toward the right side of my nose and is very touchy not my tooth but upper gum. Any idea what could be happening? Can tooth problem cause you this type of pain. My blood pressure has always been normal and I have always had good health except I take metformin for sugar have not been diagnosed as diabetic. Three years ago I had neck surgery had 6 titanium screws and plate in upper neck because of stenosis. It gave me my life back and that so far has been great. Any suggestions what might be happening.

Answered by Dr. Ajay Panwar (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Anxiety induced/Trigeminal/Ice-pick/Sinus/Ocular/Tooth.

Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Thanks for being on healthcaremagic.com.
I am Dr.Ajay Panwar,a neurologist,here to answer your query.

If you would have presented to me as an outpatient,with this medical history,I would have outlined the following etilogies,which may be the probable cause of your symptoms-
1)Anxiety-Anxiety very commonly cause such transient pain episodes
2)Tooth-With your background history of tooth problem,it is possible to result in such symptoms.Please have a dentist's consultation.
3)Ocular-You need to get examined for raised eye(intraocular)pressure.Sometimes Glaucoma may result in such symptoms.
4)Sinus-Frontal sinusitis may result in headache,sometimes transient episodes also.Please have an ENT examination.
5)Trigeminal neuralgia-can present like this sometimes.
6)Primary stabbing headache(Ice-pick)-can have similar manifestations.

For now,I would suggest you to start therapy with-
1)Tab.Indomethacin 75 mg sustained release once a day.
2)Tab.Carbamazepine 200 mg twice a day
3)Antianxiety drug-Tab.clonazepam 0.5 mg at bedtime everyday
Start doing mental relaxation exercises/meditation/Yoga which will help reduce your anxiety,thus causing improvement in symptoms.

PLEASE TAKE MEDICINES UNDER A PHYSICIAN'S GUIDANCE.

Please take Dentist's,ENT specialist's and ophthalmologist's consultation as mentioned.

Hope I have answered your query.If you have some follow-up queries,I shall be glad to answer else,please close the thread-rate it and write a review.Your rating will be of help to me.

Dr.Ajay Panwar,
MD,DM(Neurology)

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Yogesh D