Finding the Link between TMJ and Your Headaches
Headaches are a common symptom associated with many conditions. This can make them hard to diagnose. They are mistakenly described as secondary headaches related to the wrong condition, or as primary when they are actually linked to another condition.
The first step in determining whether TMJ treatment might help you is figuring out whether TMJ is causing your headache.
Westchester TMJ dentist Dr. Mejia can use her diagnostic tools to find out for sure. You should seek out a diagnosis from her if at least one of the following is true:
- Your current headache treatment isn’t very effective
- They are worse after jaw activity
- You have other TMJ symptoms
- Your current headache treatment isn’t very effective
- Your headaches get worse after jaw activity
- You have other TMJ symptoms
Doctors often prescribe headache treatments based on what they believe is the cause of your headaches. In particular, treatments designed to head off headaches are likely related to what your doctor thinks is causing your headaches. If they aren’t working as your doctor said they would, you should keep seeking a better answer to what is causing your headaches.
If headaches often occur after you work your jaw, TMJ might be the cause. Common types of jaw activity that lead to headaches include chewing gum, eating hard foods, yawning wide, or clenching and grinding your teeth.
Finally, you should suspect that TMJ might be causing your headaches if you have other TMJ symptoms. You can check out the complete list, but some of the more common symptoms include jaw pain, neck pain, sounds in the jaw joints, ringing in the ears, or vertigo. If you have at least two other TMJ symptoms, you should get tested for TMJ.
Headache Types TMJ Causes
TMJ is an umbrella term. It describes many different types of conditions that share some common symptoms. In a similar fashion, TMJ can cause:
- Tension headaches
- Migraine headaches
- Referred pain headaches
- Tension headaches
- Migraine headaches
- Referred pain headaches
You might experience one, two, or all three types, depending on your TMJ. Westchester County TMJ dentist Dr. Mejia can help you understand what’s causing your headaches and how TMJ treatment may help.
Tension Headaches
Tense, stressed muscles cause tension headaches. This type of headache is most commonly linked to TMJ, especially the myofascial pain disorder (MPD) type. Tension headaches can feel like a band of tightness around the head, and normally hurt both sides of your head at once. People typically experience this as a steady ache of mild to moderate intensity. Tension headaches typically last for at least 30 minutes, but can last several days to a week. There are rare cases of months-long tension headaches.
TMJ is commonly linked with tension headaches because the jaw muscles are the largest and strongest muscles in the head. They extend from the bottom of your jaw all the way up the side of your head to the temples behind your eyes on either side. When your jaw muscles get tense or overworked, they can cause this tension headache by themselves or they can recruit their other muscle partners to increase the intensity, duration, and distribution of the headache.
Tension headaches can also cause migraines.
Migraine Headaches
The exact mechanism of migraines is more mysterious. However, we do know that migraine pain–typically moderate to severe–often occurs on just one side of the head. In addition, people with migraines develop other symptoms, such as:
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Sensitivity to light and sounds
- Visual artifacts like dancing lights
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Sensitivity to light and sounds
- Visual artifacts like dancing lights
Some people with migraines experience a prodrome effect before their migraine. In the prodrome, people may feel depressed or moody, and may have less intense forms of other migraine symptoms. A migraine attack normally lasts a few hours to a few days. After the migraine subsides, postdrome symptoms may last for days. This might include all the migraine symptoms without the headache, though maybe with body aches.
Since we don’t know exactly what causes migraines, we don’t know what links them with TMJ. One of the most likely explanations comes from the trigeminal nerve. The trigeminal nerve is a common trigger point for migraine, and it’s the nerve that controls the jaw muscles. Some studies show that specific pressure from jaw muscles on branches of the trigeminal nerve can cause certain types of migraines. In addition, stressed jaw muscles might overwhelm the trigeminal nerve, causing it to release proteins that set off migraine attacks.
Referred Pain
Sometimes, TMJ can make it feel like you have a headache when your pain is actually someplace else. The mechanism for this is known as referred pain. In referred pain, your brain interprets pain in one part of the body as if it’s in another part.
Nerves don’t work exactly like wires that run from the body to the brain. It isn’t as if pain in a part of the body causes a light to come on in the control center of the brain. Instead, pain signals flow down your nerves almost like a river. They can flow together and blend, and your brain has to guess the origin of the signal based on other clues. It’s usually right, but sometimes it’s wrong. A well-known example is when a heart attack causes pain in your arm or jaw. Less well-known is when the brain interprets jaw pain as a headache.
Headache Relief in Westchester County
Are your current headache treatments not working? Do you still get frequent–and possibly severe–headaches? Or are you looking for a way to control headaches without relying on medication with unpleasant side effects? If so, Westchester TMJ dentist Dr. Wanda Mejia might be able to help.
Please call (914) 594-6854 or use our online form to request an appointment at Westchester TMJ & Aesthetics in Mohegan Lake.
