Headaches At Young Age Reflect Dental Problems Says A London Dentist
State University of New York conducted a study on this subject. The researchers at Buffalo sampled about 50 children that complained of regular headaches and studied its effect on dental ailments. The sampled children were in the age group of 8 through 16. This group was compared to a control group that did not complain of any regular headache.The scientists then took the plaster models of teeth of all those children belonging to both the control and the other group. To their surprise the researchers noted the bite of children that complained of regular headaches was not proper and indeed was an overbite, wherein the upper jaw teeth overlap or cover the teeth of lower jaw when one bites down. Additionally, this group of children seems to show a posterior cross bite as well wherein the top as well as bottom posterior back teeth do not sit properly on one another when one bites down.
As also children with the overbite or posterior crossbite problems are three times more prone to suffer from regular headaches and a child having overbite as well as posterior crossbite will be nine times more likely to complain of regular headaches. However, the study involved children with no complaints of jaw problems, which are otherwise called as TMJ or temporomandibular joint problems that are commonly associated with headaches. The study team; however, excluded children with TMJ problems.
“The study is inconclusive as to whether bite disorders are contributing to headache; however, it will certainly throw a light for further research and study in this area and it could prove a boon to those children if their headache complaint could be resolved by a simple dental intervention,” remarks a dental expert in London.
