Serving Patients in the areas of Grand Rapids, Holland, and Big Rapids MIExperiencing everyday pain can have a major impact on your life. It can affect your ability to sleep, work, eat, or just do the things that you enjoy from day to day. Pain is one of the most frequently reported symptoms of patients with temporomandibular joint disorder. Also known as TMJ disorder or TMD, this ailment often causes severe pain that is debilitating enough to hinder your daily life. This pain could manifest in the mouth, the neck, as headaches, or through ear symptoms like tinnitus and vertigo. Did you know, however, that TMJ disorder also can cause eye pain?
This may seem illogical, but your Grand Rapids dentists at TMJ & Sleep Disorders of Michigan are going to explain this connection. There are two sets of nerves that transmit pain signals from your eyes. Some of these nerves are linked straight to the brain. Others start at the base of the brain, and then travel through an assortment of other tissue, eventually reaching the skin surrounding your eyes.
The temporalis muscles, which are crucial to the strength and function of the jaws, are anchored just behind your eyes on both sides of your head. If a dysfunction with your temporomandibular joint is affecting the temporalis muscles, the excess muscle tension can compress the nerves connected to your eyes, resulting in eye pain.
Referred pain occurs when the pain in your body is coming from one location, but your brain gets confused and thinks the pain is coming from somewhere else. This happens quite a bit to people, especially when the source of the pain is a location where pain usually is not felt. If the source is unfamiliar, the brain can misinterpret the pain as emanating from another area of the body. Pain from the jaw muscles may occur seemingly as referred pain around the eyes, but your brain is not able to make the distinction because of the unusual nature of the pain.
Knowing all the different symptoms that can occur due to TMJ disorder, and all the different ways they can be experienced, it should be no surprise that identifying TMJ disorder is one of the most challenging diagnoses in all of medical science. This disorder often is misdiagnosed; for example, patients suffering from frequent headaches may be diagnosed as having migraines instead.
If you are experiencing eye pain, your first step is to reach out to your general physician or eye doctor. These medical professionals can determine if an eye issue like glaucoma or conjunctivitis (the clinical term for pink eye) is causing the problem. You also should begin keeping track of when your eye pain occurs or gets worse. Does it flare up after chewing, talking often, or other periods of significant jaw activity? Something such as teeth grinding—also known as bruxism—may be causing the problem without your knowledge; the vast majority of people who grind their teeth do so while sleeping.
Once other potential eye problems have been eliminated, and if you notice a link between jaw activity and your eye pain, it’s time to visit your local neuromuscular dentists in Grand Rapids. A neuromuscular dentist has advanced training that emphasizes the alignment of the bite and jaw. This skill set makes a neuromuscular dentist the ideal choice to determine correctly whether or not someone is suffering from TMJ disorder, and then provide noninvasive treatment. At TMJ & Sleep Disorders of Michigan, we are proud to have two experts in neuromuscular dentistry: Dr. Jerry Mulder and his daughter, Dr. Allyson Mulder. They can diagnose if your symptoms—including eye pain—are being caused by TMJ disorder, and then provide relief through any combination of treatments you might need.
Don’t live through the misery of untreated TMJ disorder. Schedule an appointment with one of our neuromuscular dentists today, or call our office at (616) 458-0631.
TMJ & Sleep Disorders of Michigan serves patients in Big Rapids, Grand Rapids, and Holland, MI.
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