Idiopathic Orofacial Pain: A Review

Pain in the orofacial region is both common and distressing. Their complex anatomy and aetiologies make their diagnosis challenging, frequently overlapping various surgical and medical disciplines, which makes their classification complex. Furthermore, there are a group of unclassified idiopathic pains, which frequently remain refractive to treatment. Traditionally, these pains were thought to be psychogenic in origin. Recently, this hypothesis has come under doubt, and for some idiopathic pains putative mechanisms have been proposed. This paper seeks to review the current literature on orofacial pain.