Stinging eyes

[babs1234]

Three days ago I felt like there was something in my eye. My eye was stinging and tearing, since then I have had bad head pain. Had anyone else had those symptoms before head pain?

[bamboo89]

Sometimes, yea... I get episodes where its painful to move the eye, it may water, or feel ike someone is putting a needle into the eyeball periodically, but usually, my face is also affected, like over the brow bone, the cheekbone, often also the jaw and neck, giving a feeling of pressure, almost like something's pressing on these areas. Sometimes it affects my mouth one side too - I may experience a funny taste, or a lot of saliva, or dryness in the mouth with it. Not sure its migraine though, doesn't always cause a headache, and it could be caused by pressure on the nerves supplying the face and eye. Causes of that include migraine, a problem with the temporal mandibular joint (the jaw basically) or the neck, and trigeminal neuralgia,all of which can also cause headache.

[babs1234 in reply to bamboo89]

Sounds very similar to my symptoms. I have been diagnosed with Hemicrania continua ☹️

[bamboo89 in reply to babs1234]

I wonder about hemiplegic migraine too - I once 'lost' my left arm altogether for about 5 minutes 3 years ago, they thought I'd had a stroke cos the whole left side of my body was weak too, but I hadn't. Took about 6 weeks to feel normal again... they said they thought it was caused by my arthritic, damaged neck,but who knows. In my current circumstances, I've stopped worrying about it!

[babs1234 in reply to bamboo89]

Yes my headaches always seem to be associated with neck and shoulder pain too.

[bamboo89 in reply to babs1234]

Hmm, that reminds me - I'm 68 now, but when I was 36, pulling on my jeans one day, I had a sudden, terrible pain in the back of my head, at the top of my neck,followed by the most dreadful, disabling headache - ended up in hospital cos they thought it was possibly a brain haemorrhage or a spinal infection, One MRI, CT, spinal tap and five days in hospital later, they couldn't find any cause for it, and decided it was 'peri menopausal migraine' and referred me to the migraine clinic. Sounded like complete nonsense to me,especially as I was nowhere near the menopause, and a friend of mine told me about a cranial osteopath she knew and suggested I go to see him, cos I'd still got a headache. So I did, a week later. He found a small bone out of place in my neck, did a full cranial and neck treatment, and explained the residual headache was, in fact, a result of the spinal tap - the hospital had neglected to tell me that I needed to lay down for 20 minutes every hour till the fluid in the spine replenished itself, otherwise I'd have a permanent headache. His assessment was it was the bone moving out of place that caused the sudden terrible pain, and it certainly wasn't migraine. After that treatment, I could turn my head fully to the left for the first time in years... I attended my appointment at the migraine clinic, told them I thought it wasn't migraine at all,but a problem with the neck put right by the osteopath - they conferred for 5 minutes and told me they agreed, and I was discharged.

I followed the advice re laying down, and whenever my neck and shoulders became troublesome (maybe once or twice a year) I'd go see him and any problems would disappear. And no headaches either...but as my neck deteriorated with arthritis, after another 25 years, he couldn't sort my neck out any more, and that's when all the eye pain, facial pain, brow pain and so on started to become a problem. So if you've never seen a really good cranial osteopath, it might be worth trying that too - good luck!