Chronic eye pain refers to ongoing discomfort or pain in or around one or both eyes lasting for more than three months. It may feel burning, aching, stabbing, or gritty — and often persists even when there are no visible abnormalities on examination.
This type of pain can arise from nerve sensitisation (neuropathic pain), ocular surface disease, previous trauma or surgery, or inflammation. In many cases, it represents a disorder of the trigeminal nerve, which supplies sensation to the eye and surrounding structures.
Typical symptoms include:
Chronic eye pain can follow laser eye surgery, infection, dry eye disease, or trauma, and may coexist with conditions such as migraine or trigeminal neuralgia. Because this pain can have multiple causes, an accurate, multidisciplinary diagnosis is essential.
At Wessex Pain Clinic, we are pleased to assess and treat patients with chronic or neuropathic eye pain.
However, we require documented evidence that you have been assessed by an ophthalmologist, or that your referral comes from an ophthalmology specialist.
This ensures that structural or treatable eye conditions — such as infection, inflammation, glaucoma, or corneal disease — have been fully investigated before pain-focused treatment begins.
Once these have been excluded or stabilised, our clinic can provide advanced management of the neuropathic and central pain components that may persist.
Following ophthalmic evaluation, our pain specialists perform a comprehensive assessment to understand the pattern and cause of your eye pain.
We may consider:
Our pain psychology partners provide support for managing the emotional and cognitive aspects of chronic pain through CBT, ACT, and mindfulness-based strategies.
This multidisciplinary model ensures every aspect of eye pain — physical, neurological, and emotional — is addressed collaboratively.
At Wessex Pain Clinic, we work as a team and meet regularly to discuss complex, treatment resistant or unusual cases. As such you will often receive the expertise of several pain consultants. We believe that we are one of very few pain clinics to offer this.
We may recommend:
For persistent or severe neuropathic or referred eye pain, our consultants may offer:
Our friendly team is on hand to support you every step of the way. Please get in touch at any time.
