Why does my child's cheek hurt?

Many children will feel cheek pain for a few seconds in their daily lives. People think that cheek pain may be caused by something they have eaten recently or has been taking a long time to eat. In fact, cheek pain includes many types, such as cheek pain caused by mumps.

Mumps is mainly transmitted through the respiratory tract. The virus can exist in the patient's saliva and be transmitted directly through droplets. It can also be transmitted indirectly through clothes, toys or public utensils contaminated with saliva. Mumps is likely to spread in kindergartens, primary schools or middle schools in spring. Primary school students and junior high school students are a high-risk group for mumps.

What is mumps?

Mumps, commonly known as "mumps", is an acute respiratory infectious disease caused by mumps virus infection. It is common in children and adolescents. Mumps virus mainly invades the parotid gland. The parotid glands are located around the earlobes on both sides of the cheeks. In addition to the parotid gland, the virus can also invade other glandular tissues and organs, such as the pancreas, gonads, brain tissue, heart, joints, etc.

The main symptom of mumps is swelling at the base of one or both earlobes. The swollen parotid gland is often hemispherical, diffusely swollen with the earlobe as the center, with unclear boundaries, hot surface, tenderness, and local pain when opening the mouth or chewing. It may or may not be accompanied by fever, with body temperature around 38.5℃. Most children have a good prognosis. If there are no complications, the natural course of the disease is about 10 days.

However, when the mumps virus affects organs other than the parotid gland, various complications can occur. Possible complications include meningoencephalitis, orchitis or epididymitis, oophoritis, pancreatitis, etc.