Ali Makki

Dr. Makki is board-certified in Orofacial Pain management and as diplomate of the American Board of Orofacial Pain (ABOP) he specializes in pain disorders of the head, face, and mouth. He is the founder and current director of the Oral and Facial Pain Center at Hoag Neurosciences Institute (HNI) in Newport Beach, where he is also a lead physician of the Hoag Headache and Facial Pain Program and presently serves as service chief of Orofacial Pain.

He earned his dental medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed residency in Orofacial Pain at UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Makki served his externship through the Department of Anesthesiology at Cedars-Sinai Pain Center and focused on complex headaches and chronic craniomandibular pain conditions. Additionally, he completed a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, with an emphasis on the treatment of oral and craniofacial pains and obstructive sleep apnea in geriatric patients. Among other publications he has authored a textbook chapter on neurological disorders affecting the head and neck in the elderly and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Makki also lectures nationally and internationally and to community organizations on the topics of headache, orofacial pain, and TMJ disorders.

Dr. Makki’s academic endeavors include teaching residents and fellows as Associate Professor of Neurology at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine, where he is an attending physician in the Department of Neurology and serves as director of the Headache and Orofacial Pain Program. He is concurrently appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Oral Diagnosis, Radiology and Pathology of the Loma Linda University School of Dentistry. His areas of clinical interest include primary headaches (i.e., migraine and cluster), facial neuralgias, burning mouth syndrome, oro-mandibular and facial dystonias, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea. Dr. Makki is actively involved in clinical research and applies the latest evidence-based and novel treatments for difficult cases of pain and emphasizes cognitive behavioral therapy as an integral part of his “whole-person” pain management strategy.