I'm so happy to have found this forum! I have had intermittent dysesthesias/paresthesias for many years--numb legs, arm, face. They come and go, and when I was younger, I was very frightened that I might have MS. Two normal MRIs eliminated this fear. (I cannot even bring myself to think about ALS.) About 4 years ago, I experienced excruciating pain in my right ear.I was just sitting at my computer! I saw my PCP, but here was "nothing" there. It subsided.Several months later, I experienced it again. Very sharp pain, exacerated by turning my head, which made it feel as if a fishhook were in my ear, extending down my neck. Many years ago, I noticed that my smile was asymmetrical, and my PCP suggested that I had had a mild case of Bell's palsy some time before. I can force a smile that is perfectly symmetrucal, but if I just begin to smile, my left side smiles and my right side does not. Over the past year, the ear pain is more frequent, and when there is not frank pain, there is a hypersensitivity that drives me crazy. I can't wear a hat, or earphones, can't sleep on my right side.In addition, I have numbness, tingling, and sometimes itchiness on the entire right side of my face, head and scalp. extending to the bony area behind my right ear. It now includes the right side of my tongue and throat. Sometimes my ear gets bright red. (I also have had Reynaud's and tinnitis for years.) The initial ear pain started about 10 days afer cataract surgery, but that was on the otjer side. A year later I had the right eye done. (My ophthalmologist was quite surprised because I developed these cataracts in my mid-40s. My vision is crowded with so mnay huge, dense floaters that I have been offered a floater-only vitrectomy, which I am given to understand very few surgeons offer to do.) I did have a retrobulbar block for the surgery, and wonder if there was some damage to a facial/orbital nerve. The ENT I saw suggested that it might be a post-herpetic neuropathy, if, in fact, I did have Bell's palsy long ago. Seeveral years back I noticed that I have a sort of cyst at the back of my neck. It's quite mobile, and scoots behind my C spine if I move my neck. Thus, it doesn't seem as if it would be compressing anything. Has anyone ever experienced this intermnittent excruciating ear pain, along with residual hypersensitivity of the external ear?

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facial numbness - Neurology - MedHelp