WHO hasn’t experienced that awful pounding sensation capable of crippling your day and your mood? Headaches are perhaps the most frequent complaint in our society and are no stranger to medical and dental patients. But what causes headaches?

Headaches can be the result of poor eating habits, dehydration, lack of sleep, anxiety, epilepsy, mood disorders, and allergies, but can also arise from dental cavities, sinus infections, abscesses, and other dental issues.

Headaches and dental pain have a lot in common. Both are transmitted via the largest sensory nerve that supplies the head and neck. Pain in the part of the nerve that supplies the mouth may activate another branch in the face or scalp and vice versa. For instance, people who suffer from migraines may find a toothache to be the trigger.

If the chewing surfaces of your teeth are not properly aligned, not only can it make you more susceptible to cavities, but it can also strain the muscles of your jaw resulting in muscle spasms and headaches.

Headaches with dental origin

Symptoms of headaches with a dental origin include pain behind the eyes, sinus pain, sore jaw muscles, clicking jaw joints, and teeth grinding.

Teeth grinding, however, can be both a symptom as well as a cause.

Many times people unknowingly grind and clench their teeth so much so that damage is caused to the teeth and surrounding structures. Clenching and grinding inadvertently result in contraction of the neck muscles and prolonged contraction of these muscles often leads to sustained pain and eventually headaches.

The causes of dental headaches are quite elusive and this makes them difficult to diagnose, especially when doctors exclusively focus on the localisation of the pain. Fortunately, if the cause has been identified as having a dental origin, treatment is relatively straightforward.

Treating dental headaches

Teeth can be realigned by reshaping the teeth or by orthodontic treatment. Mouth guards are one way to mitigate the effects of teeth grinding, but if the underlying cause is, for example stress, then appropriate management techniques should be explored.

Temporomandibular joint disorder

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder is another common cause of headaches. More often than not, this is the result of traumatic injury to the joint, for instance from whiplash, but can also arise from having your mouth open too wide for too long at the dentist.

Treatment includes exercises that will gently stretch and relax the surrounding muscles, massages, muscle relaxers, and applying cold packs to the area.

Migraines and other headaches should not be confused with trigeminal neuralgia pain. Perhaps the most intense orofacial pain, trigeminal neuralgia is described as sudden, excruciating pain with characteristic trigger zones. Headaches have a wide range of causes, if you have any of the aforementioned symptoms, see your dentist today.

Dr Sharon Robinson DDS has offices at the Dental Place Cosmetix Spa located at Shop #5, Winchester Business Centre, 15 Hope Road, Kingston 10. She is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Technology, Jamaica School of Oral Health Sciences. Dr Robinson may be contacted at 630-4710.