What can cause episodes of dull pain in the left eye?

Question

Hello doctor,

I have been having episodes where I will have periods of dull pain over my left eye, the area where the bridge of my nose meets my brow bone. At the same time, I am getting a tingling sensation in my right groin at a very specific location and not a generalized tingling. The periods of pain and tingling used to last for 10 to 15 seconds and would occur maybe once every few days for a week or so and then disappear. They were gone for about a month, but now they have come back and are occurring once every few days for the past one week. They have happened mostly at night or when in a reclining position and have recently woke me up. They tend to coincide with when I am having some amount of post-nasal drip. When I am feeling the pain or tingling I have not found anything that lessen or quicken the pain or make it worse. When I press on the area above my eye where the pain is, it is tender even when not experiencing the pain or tingling. I have not experienced any nausea, headaches, blurred vision, etc. What could be causing this?

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com. I read your query and understood your concerns. From the available description, it is clear that you are having frontal sinusitis which can explain all of your symptoms except tingling sensation in groin. Presence of pain on touch (tenderness), pain while in reclining position and coincidence of pain with post-nasal drip favors the clear cut diagnosis. One thing is that the episodic nature of pain, which is not common with frontal sinusitis but can occur in few cases. I feel that pain over left eye and tingling sensation is not casually related as there is no condition which can explain both these symptoms on basis of single disease. The one possibility is anxiety associated with recurrent pain can be cause of tingling over the groin area although constant nature of tingling on same location points against anxiety. We can expect that complete neurological examination will reveal the true nature of association. At this moment, I must assure you that this is not something serious and get yourself treated for sinusitis to break the event of chains.

Answer 2

Hi,

Welcome back to icliniq.com. In a normal person, every nerve has area of distribution and there is overlapping on superficial areas. Since both of your pain and tingling areas are remotely located from each other there is no possibility of referred pain or something else casually associated with each other. If I go for details area over the left eye and groin are supplied by cervical nerves and sacral nerves and there isno link possible in a normal person. In addition, if I guess that there is some aberrant connection, although possibility is one in millions then the other associated symptoms cannot be explained by the lesion of single nerve. I do agree with anxiety component a possible explanation, but as you pointed there are certain loopholes to associate both things with anxiety. So to conclude, I stand with my opinion that there is no direct connection between the pain and tingling in distant locations and this may be just a coincidence which is repeatedly taking place and became associated due to some underlying mechanism based on anxiety.

What can cause episodes of dull pain in the left eye?

Left Eye Pain and Groin Tingling Companion