It can be quite frightening to suddenly feel stabbing pain behind your eye. 

Causes of Stabbing Pain Behind Your Eye

“Pain behind the eye can be from a number of causes,” says Dr. Ravish Patwardhan, MD, nationally-renowned neurosurgeon and founder of Comprehensive Neurosurgery Network LLC.

“The most important things to rule out are a tumor or aneurysm, which can usually be done by using an MRI scan with MR angiogram.”

Dr. Patwardhan also notes: “Other intrinsic problems with the eye can be determined by an eye doctor.

“Some conditions will exist without any of these findings, such as Tolosa-Hunt syndrome, diagnosed with the help of a neurologist.

“In either case, the proper healthcare professional will guide diagnosis and therapy.”

Next time you suffer stabbing pain behind the eye, what should you do?

This is probably NOT a rupturing aneurysm or a tumor.

Nevertheless, ongoing occurrences mean you should get this checked out.

If this nuisance is your only symptom (i.e., no visual disturbances, slurred speech, numbness, unsteady gait, dizziness or nausea), you should not lose sleep over this.

According to Dr. Patwardhan, the stabbing pain behind the eye is most likely just a benign headache in a nasty location, creating the illusion that it means a serious condition.

Even a mere tension headache or ice cream headache can cause considerable discomfort in this location.

Take it easy, relax, and to put your mind at ease, you may want to consider recording incidents, so that next time it happens, you could refer to your documents and possibly say, “Hey, I had this 14 months ago and nothing came of it! So there’s no need to worry!”

Comprehensive Neurosurgery Network provides treatment for neurological disorders of the brain, spine and peripheral nerves.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.