Albertville, AL
People who experience chronic headaches or migraines often overlook dental problems as one of the potential causes of their suffering. While it’s true that the onset of headaches and migraines can be caused by a number of things, such as sinuses, illness, stress, bad posture or a lack of sleep, it’s also true that dental problems can and often do lead to migraines. Grinding/clenching teeth, a jaw joint disorder, sleep apnea, a misaligned bite or tooth damage and infections are all dental issues that can trigger debilitating tension headaches and migraines.
Our Albertville family dentists who specialize in headache relief at Wall Street Dentistry share on the blog today the potential root of your chronic headaches and migraines and how dental therapy may offer you some much-needed relief.
What could be causing your migraine?
From a jaw-joint disorder to a misaligned bite, a number of dental issues and abnormalities could be causing your chronic and debilitating headaches.
- Bruxism, or grinding/clenching teeth — Bruxism causes people to grind and clench their teeth, usually while sleeping. The grinding overworks the jaw muscle, often causing pain in the jaw, face and head.
- Bad bite — When teeth don’t fit together properly, even small movements like biting down, talking or chewing overworks and strains the jaw and wears down teeth, all of which can lead to headaches.
- TMJ Disorder — Temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, is a disorder affecting the jaw joints and surrounding muscles and ligaments. TMJ can cause pain in the joint and muscles, toothaches and headaches.
- Sleep apnea — Sleep apnea occurs when throat tissue causes someone to stop breathing for periods of time while sleeping. The common condition can trigger tension-type headaches in some people while causing migraine attacks in others.
- Tooth damage/infection — Tooth damage and infections can cause pain down to the tooth’s pulp, reaching the trigeminal nerve, which then carries pain to other parts of the face and head.
What’s the trigeminal nerve?
Pain in any part of the face, jaw or head can travel — via the cranial trigeminal nerve — to any other place in the area because the nerve branches out to various cranial places, including the forehead, cheek and lower jaw. Pain travels along the nerve, so pain felt in the jaw, for instance, can travel to other parts of the head, causing headaches and migraines.
Treatment
The good news is this: none of these issues are untreatable. In fact, relief may be as simple as oral appliance therapy: wearing a custom-made, comfortable night guard when you sleep. Night guards are fit specifically for your teeth in our Albertville family dentist office. The appliance can be stored in a small, hard plastic case that conveniently fits into your purse or pocket. Oral appliance therapy is immediately effective and has a high success rate, with many patients reporting relief from jaw, face and head pain almost immediately.
Migraine help in Albertville, Alabama
The next time you feel a headache or migraine coming on, consider skipping over the bottle of pain reliever and instead pop open the hard, plastic case to your oral appliance therapy device. If you have chronic headaches or migraines and haven’t yet spoken with our cosmetic dentist in Albertville, we hope you will reach out. Our cosmetic dentists know how migraines can effectively ruin your quality of life. A better quality of life is just a phone call away. We are here to answer any questions you have. We can also schedule your exam with our caring, compassionate dental team at Wall Street Dentistry. Give us a call at (256) 400-2783, or reach out online to schedule your appointment today.