Temporomandibular Joint Disorder and Severe Headaches

At least 20 percent of the American population suffers from a daily or weekly headache, medical researchers report. Statistics reveal that 25 percent of women and 8 percent of men experience a migraine at some point in their lives.

Migraines are different from tension and other headaches because they are accompanied by other symptoms such as:

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Fatigue
• Light sensitivity

About migraines

These severe headaches tend to start between the ages of 10 and 46. They can last hours, days, even weeks. A migraine can be hereditary, resulting from a skeletal imbalance that is passed on from one generation to the next. Aside from genetics, a skeletal imbalance can also arise from a malocclusion or “bad bite.”

Migraines and temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ/TMD))

Unexplained headaches are a common symptom of TMD. Generally speaking, a TMD-caused headache is affects your temples or back of the head.

TMD-caused migraines are just as painful and incapacitating as normal migraine headaches. Migraines have a multitude of triggers, TMD is just one. Many people who have never experienced a migraine do not understand how debilitating they can be.

Diagnosis

Diagnosing a TMD migraine can be tricky. Often times, migraine headaches defy the medical fields’ best attempts to identify a cause and find a cure. Though there are medications available to help alleviate the symptoms, many migraine sufferers are forced to deal with this painful condition for a majority of their lives.

However, there is hope. Instead of treating the symptoms, if the root of the problem can be identified and corrected, your migraine will improve if not disappear. If you are experiencing migraines in conjunction with any of the below side effects, the root of your problem may be TMD:

• Pain where the jaw meets your skull
• Discomfort when chewing, talking and opening your mouth
• Sudden locking of your jaw
• Clicking, popping or grating sounds in your jaw joint
• Pain around your eyes, down the back of your head or in your neck
• Pain in your shoulders, back or shooting down your arms

With today’s advances in neuromuscular dentistry, there are treatments that a neuromuscular dentist can administer to help realign a bad bite and ultimately free you of pain.

Self test

If you are experiencing a severe headache or migraine, you can perform a self test to see if TMD may be a factor. Do this by feeling your temples and then clenching your jaw together. You will feel a muscle tense up or contract beneath your fingertips at your temples. Now relax your jaw and press on that area. If you feel pain or tenderness, this means that you are overstressing your jaw and the muscles are tender. This could be caused by a bad bite, and is the source of your headaches.