Pain Matters Magazine

It was a great pleasure to be approached by Pain Concern to put together an issue of Pain Matters on facial pain.
Persistent pain occurs in all parts of the body, but facial pain is a particular problem for a number of reasons. The face has a very high representation in the brain, so if you stick a sharp pin in your toe with the same pressure as on your tongue you will tell me that the one in the tongue is of greater intensity. When the face itself is in pain it becomes difficult to communicate, as the pain can be so severe that talking becomes impossible. How do we define what is the face and what is the head? In general, we say that pain from the top of the eyebrows down to the bottom of the chin, including the mouth, is called facial pain. In the introduction I discuss the difficulties of determining who is the right person to consult.
Patients with facial pain may need to see a range of different health care professionals (HCP) in order to be managed holistically. It is for this reason that, in 2007, I set up a multidisciplinary (MDT) facial pain service which includes oral physicians, oral surgeons, neurologists, neurosurgeons, liaison psychiatrist, physiotherapists, psychologists, clinical nurse specialists and complementary and alternative medicine experts. In 2019 our MDT were finalists in the British Medical Journal Clinical Excellence Awards, and we went on to win the award for Top Quality Patient Care at University College London Hospitals Trust (UCLH). Our MDT team has been involved in this issue. Many of our patients benefit from the first in the UK Pain Management Program dedicated to patients with face pain – About Face and three healthcare professionals (HCPs) from the team tell you more about it.
I hope you find these useful articles as we highlight that you can live well with pain.