What Causes Pain Behind Your Left Eye?
Medically reviewed by Andre Stone | MD, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine on August 25th, 2026.
Pain behind your left eye can result from several conditions affecting nerves, blood vessels, or surrounding tissues. Cluster headaches are an uncommon cause of intense, stabbing pain around or behind one eye, often with tearing, eye redness, or a stuffy or runny nose on the same side. Tension headaches and migraines also commonly cause eye pain, with migraines affecting 12% of adults. Sinus infections can create pressure and pain around the eye area. Less common causes include temporal arteritis, a serious condition that occurs in adults over 50, and trigeminal neuralgia, which typically causes brief, electric shock-like facial pain and may sometimes be felt near the eye. Eye strain from prolonged screen use or uncorrected vision problems can also trigger pain. Seek immediate medical attention for sudden or severe eye pain, vision loss or other vision changes, a red eye with nausea or vomiting, new weakness or confusion, fever with swelling around the eye, or pain after an eye injury.
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