Treatment Advice for a Facial Injury

[Nateo2015]

I also posted this in the dermatology forum under the title Laser Treatment for Facial Scarring, but I also wanted opinions from here because of some of the symptoms I have and the fact that it was a head injury.

About 2.5 months ago I was involved in a fight that broke out at a bar. During the fight, I was hit in the face with either a bottle or cocktail glass (I couldn't tell which due to poor lighting and the fact that it came from somewhere out of my peripheral vision). I walked back home with a couple of my friends and one of them drove me to the hospital. I had a vertical gash, about 1 inch long pretty much right on top of the point of my left cheekbone. The ER gave me 6 stiches which only had to stay in for 4 days and sent me home. The next day I had a black eye to go along with the gash.

It all healed fairly well and the black eye went away, but then the black eye sort of came back and has stuck around. It's not really bad, but it looks like I have a large dark circle, from lack of sleep or something, under my left eye compared to virtually no circle under my right eye. I'm only 24, so you can imagine this is kind of annoying.

I've seen a local dermatologist for an IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) treatment to reduce both the redness of the scar and the dark circle under my left eye. I plan on seeing him again and am considering a treatment called Deep FX in case I'm not satisfied with IPL. I just wanted to see some opinions on this and also if there is anything else I should be concerned about that might be causing the dark circle under my eye.

Some additional info: I also had some tooth numbness in my upper left jaw from this and a feeling of tightness around the scar on my face. I also have some ocassional twinges of pain around my left eye and that part of my head, similar to a mild headache. I have no trouble with my eye itself or with my vision though, so I'm not sure if this is anything to worry about or not. I went to my family dentist who did a full series of X Rays and he said he saw no visible damage to my teeth or surrounding bones.

The numbness significantly improved after the first IPL treatment I had which was a pleasant suprise. But the occasional "aches" are still there and the dark circle seems like it was only minimally affected. Any thoughts on this? Again, none of this is really debilitating or anything, I'm just wondering if there's any potential for serious nerve problems or other major issues in or outside of dermatology I might want to consider?

Thanks!

[ggreg]

Well, I only have common sense answers for you.  Usually if a bruise (or black eye) doesn't go away after two weeks, you're supposed to see a doctor about it.  It is possible you still have some glass in your face, perhaps, causing continuation of bleeding, and thus the blood that is still be accumulating under your eye.  Since your dentist X-rayed your teeth and surrounding bones, I'm not sure if he also saw your orbital bones, but could be you have a little fracture there that is causing a problem with your undereye.  Also, might be an infection has set up shop from the cut, thus causing the ecchymosis.

Now, as for some neurological thing at work here, the numbness you felt is normal from an injury to the face that causes a black eye, so a neuro is not who you need to see.  I personally think you ought to visit an eye specialist, to find out how come you still have this black eye, so he can stop the origin of the discoloration.  By the way, Vitamin K is good for clotting blood, you can get it from dark green leafy vegetables.

[Nateo2015]

Well I know there's no glass in there because the object didn't break until it hit the ground after hitting me. My dentist did a pretty thorough series of X-Rays, like 8 of them if I remember right including my cheek area, so I'm pretty sure there's no fracture.

I hadn't considered an infection or using vitamin K though. Thanks for that advice!