A sharp, piercing toothache will have you dialing your phone to arrange an emergency dental appointment. Your instincts for fast action are right on. When your body signals you that something is amiss, the quicker you resolve the issue, the easier the resolution. You could be perplexed, however, if your Farmington Hills dentist, Dr. Aziza Askari examined you in a toothache crisis and found nothing wrong. How can this be? Your sinuses may be the number one suspect.
About your Sinuses
As you breathe through your nose, air travels in through your sinuses on a fast path to your lungs. Hollow cavities that are located within your jawbone, your sinuses are a part of your body that can succumb to infection fairly easily due to so much activity. Sinuses look similar to the inside of your mouth. The pink membrane that lines your sinuses will become inflamed when infected, which is clinically termed as sinusitis. If you are susceptible to sinus infections, they often ramp up when seasonal allergies are at their worst.
How Can Sinusitis and Toothaches Cause Similar Symptoms?
Your sinuses are located above the roots of your upper molars. If you see Dr. Askari with a toothache, she will likely order x-rays of your teeth. If your tooth pain has a dental cause, the most likely culprit is inflammation of your dental pulp below the gumline. The roots of teeth reside along with other nerves and tissues in your dental pulp, so once infection reaches this part of your tooth anatomy, you are likely to feel a toothache. However, if x-rays and examination show that there is no clear problem with your teeth, you may want to check in with your general physician next to find out if your sinuses are the cause of your discomfort.
Your Misaligned Bite Could Cause Teeth Grinding
Two common dental problems are malocclusion and bruxism. Misaligned bites and teeth grinding are distinctly different issues by definition, but there are patients that have both conditions. When you present with malocclusion and teeth grinding, treating the alignment of your bite can stop or greatly improve your teeth grinding issues. Dr. Aziza Askari, Farmington Hills dentist, helps patients with both of these issues through a variety of treatments from orthodontics to mouthguards.
Malocclusion
In laymen’s terms, the clinical term malocclusion means “poor bite.” There are many different forms of malocclusion. An upper protrusion (AKA buck teeth) is where your upper front teeth sit in an outward position. Spacing and crowding problems either create too much room for your teeth, or not enough, detrimentally affecting their alignment. When the center point of the front and bottom teeth don’t match up, this is known as a misplaced midline. An open bites means that upper and lower teeth don’t overlap. This creates an open space in the front of your mouth when you bite down. Overbites and underbites are virtually the same issue either on the upper or lower arches of your teeth. Teeth reach out further than normal with these bite issues which creates a misalignment.
Bruxism
Bruxism is the clinical term for grinding teeth. This phenomenon usually happens at night, completely unbeknownst to you as you try to peacefully slumber. Bruxism may sound like a fairly innocuous dental issue, but the constant pressure and friction your teeth are forced to sustain can damage tooth enamel and dentin, causing the structure of your smile to wear down significantly. This causes both cosmetic issues and a higher risk for tooth decay. Symptoms of chronic bruxism often include headaches, jaw soreness, and irritation to the temporomandibular joints (TMJS). If you are dealing with persistent bruxism, fixing your misaligned bite with orthodontics is one way to stop your teeth grinding issue. Teeth grinding is usually treated with customized mouthguards which are worn at night