Freys Syndrome is a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

What is Freys Syndrome ?

It is a neurological disorder resulting from damage to or near the parotid glands responsible for making saliva, and from damage to the facial nerve often from surgery .

The symptoms of Frey's syndrome are redness and sweating on the cheek area adjacent to the ear. These symptoms generally appear when the affected person eats, sees, dreams, thinks about or talks about certain kinds of food which produce strong salivation. Observing sweating in the region after eating a lemon wedge may be diagnostic.

Freys Syndrome Symptoms

Redness (erythema)
Sweating in the cutaneous distribution of the auriculotemporal nerve usually in response to gustatory stimuli.

Sometimes it may be associated with pain in the same area, often of a burning nature. Between attacks of pain there is sometimes numbness or other altered sensations (anaesthesia or paraesthesia). This is sometimes termed "Gustatory Neuralgia".

Freys Syndrome Causes

It is generally due to the side effects of a surgery of or near parotid glands or may be due to injury to the auriculotemporal nerve, which passes through the parotid gland. As a result of inappropriate regeneration, the parasympathetic nerve fibers may switch course to skin surface, resulting in "Gustatory sweating" or sweating in anticipation of eating, instead of the normal salivatory response.

Freys Syndrome Complications


  • Sweating
  • Skin maceration
  • Fissuring