This paper examines the extent to which a chronic facial pain disorder (temporomandibular pain and dysfunction syndrome or TMPDS) is felt to be stigmatizing by those who suffer from it. We argue that, because TMPDS cases experience persistent pain that cannot be explained biomedically, they are vulnerable to negative labeling both by the health professionals who treat the pain and by others in their lives. We also argue that such labeling can cause TMPDS sufferers to feel stigmatized and that perceptions of stigma can have adverse consequences for the pained person 's social relationships, especially intimate relationships. Using scales developed to assess two dimensions of perceived stigma and two management strategies, we find that a large majority of the TMPDS patients in our sample feels estranged from others and not understood because of their experiences with facial pain. A substantial minority also believes that others attribute their condition to personality problems. And, many facial pain patients endorse two common stigma management strategies: disclosure and secrecy. Perceptions of stigma are related to the frequency of medical consultations and to having been told by a doctor that the pain is imaginary. With respect to social relationships, we find the support networks of patients who feel estranged due to their pain experiences contain relatively more members of their households than do networks of less estranged patients. In addition, we find a relationship between estrangement due to pain and dissatisfaction with intimate relationships. These findings are discussed in terms of the applicability of sociological theories of labeling and stigma for a condition not generally thought of in terms of these processes. Chronic unexplained pain poses a potent social dilemma for those who experience it. The pain itself is an undeniable reality, part of the person's experience of the world. But how can this subjectively experienced reality become a socially recognized one? In the absence of an easily identifiable lesion, people with pain often rely on biomedical experts to validate their claims of discomfort through medical investigations and tests. But some forms of pain are left unexplained by these investigations, and, when they are, the person is placed firmly in a situation ripe for social awkwardness and misunderstanding. Other investigators have described some of the consequences of the pained person's social dilemma in terms of the cultural meanings of chronic pain (Hilbert 1984) and social interactions of persons with pain (Kotarba 1983). In this paper, we investigate an unexplored aspect of chronic unexplained pain, its stigmatizing potential, and the resulting implications this has for the breadth and quality of social relationships. We argue that attempts to cope with chronic unexplained pain problems eventually generate stigmatizing reactions from many of the health professionals who treat these conditions and from others in the sufferers' lives. Then, once feelings of stigmatization become part of