Diagnostic Tests for Facial pain

Diagnostic Test list for Facial pain:

The list of diagnostic tests mentioned in various sources as used in the diagnosis of Facial pain includes:

• General inspection
  • Note the person's general state and behavior e.g. any sudden jabbing pain in the face causes a characteristic "tic" and may indicate neuralgia
• Physical examination
  • Inspection of the mouth, sinuses, nose, pharynx, tonsils, tongue, larynx and parotid gland
  • Palpate the face and neck to include the parotid and other salivary glands, eyes, local lymph nodes, skin, temporomandibular joint, cervical spine
  • Inspect and tap each tooth for tenderness which may indicate a dental disorder
  • Check for pain and limitation of jaw movements ( especially opening the mouth), tenderness of the jaw joint and grating noise with moving the joint which suggests temporomandibular joint dysfunction
  • Inspect for proptosis (forward displacement of the eyeball) which may indicate a tumor arising from the bones of the orbit (such as lymphoma or metastases) or of the sinuses
  • Nervous system examination. If abnormalities are found must consider multiple sclerosis, acute Wallenberg's syndrome, advanced acoustic neuroma or nasopharyngeal cancer (that may invade the base of skull early and present with multiple cranial nerve palsies)
• Blood tests
  • Full blood count
  • ESR is elevated in giant cell arteritis (temporal arteritis)
• Radiological investigations
  • X-Ray of sinuses
  • X-Ray of teeth
  • CT Scan of sinuses
  • CT Scan of brain
  • X-Ray of temporomandibular joint
  • MRI of temporomandibular joint (procedure of choice to rule out pathology of this joint)
  • Sialography - if suspect salivary gland stones.
• Histamine test (may help rule out cluster headache or atypical migraine)
• Biopsy of the temporal artery - if suspect temporal arteritis.
• Spinal tap - may be required if suspect Multiple sclerosis.
• Electrophysiological tests such as visual-evoked response (VER) - may be required to diagnose Multiple sclerosis.

Home Diagnostic Testing

These home medical tests may be relevant to Facial pain causes:

• Nerve Neuropathy: Related Home Testing:
  • Home Diabetes Test Kits
  • Home Blood Glucose Testing Kits

Conditions listing medical symptoms: Facial pain:

The following list of conditions have 'Facial pain' or similar listed as a symptom in our database. This computer-generated list may be inaccurate or incomplete. Always seek prompt professional medical advice about the cause of any symptom.

Select from the following alphabetical view of conditions which include a symptom of Facial pain or choose View All.

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