Hello everyone,
I don't know if this will help anyone else here but it sure helped me a lot. My atypical facial pain began with a head and neck injury that I supposed must have damaged my trigimenal nerve root at C3 because I had some cervical instability there. My symptoms were primarily right cheek and forehead (to a lesser extent) shooting pain, more like an ache and a sense that my face was frozen. This was triggered by facial muscle movements-you know smiling, laughing, crying...any kind of facial expression.
I thought I had tried it all (minus surgery) including having my C3 injected with steroid (done under fluoroscopy) which did help a lot. I tried lots of different meds-Nortriptyline, Cymbalta, narcotics...but these didn't work for me for other reasons. I was maintaining on Lyrica and Flexeril mostly at night and retreating to my bedroom whenever things got bad (which was any day with normal activity).
Then I decided I had earned a massage and had healed enough to try it again (about 3 years after the initial injury). Early on massages made things worse. However this therapist happened to be experienced in trigger points and she went to town on mine which hurt like the dickens! Apparently the only way to feel better sometimes is to feel worse... But when she was done, I could turn my neck better than I had in 3 years and my facial pain was greatly reduced. Best of all she showed me how to keep up with the knots by doing my own trigger point massage. I now do this while I commuting to get rid of the stress of the day.
So far soooo much better. And I feel like I'm getting deeper and deeper into knots that had probably been developing for the three years that I lived with so much pain.
I can't say that the cause of my facial pain is the same as everyone's here. So this may not work as great for you. But then again, it could be part of the symptomology as a condition becomes chronic. It certainly doesn't hurt to try (well actually it does a little) but there aren't any major adverse effects.
I wish everyone here may find relief someday! And my heart goes out to each of you.