The night before last I woke up with excruciating mouth pain and wound up in the emergency ward. As bad as the dental pain was I was even more scared when they did an ecg (electro-cardio-gram) on me and took blood tests, saying that jaw pain can be an indicator of an impending heart attack. Has anyone here heard of this before? It was news to me. Anyways to my great relief everything came back normal to do with my heart but I am still living with pain in my mouth. I've been hopped up on percocets for the last two days and while they help I can't go to work or do much else due to being too doped up. According to the ER doctor there is nothing wrong with my teeth. Rather it is my jaw, which feels out of alignment. I grind my teeth often, especially while I sleep so maybe this is the cause. I just want to find a solution to the problem soon. JS

I have heard of a connection between heart attacks/disease and jaw pain. Here is a link from the American Heart Association:

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4595

Jim

yes, jls,

I have encountered these kinds of problems.

It is possible for an infected tooth or the root of the tooth to inject toxins into the blood stream which can be quite damaging to health and trigger heart palpatations, etc. Apparently this is not what you had. Good.

A few years ago I was having what felt like an inner ear infection. I saw various doctors and dentists to check the problem out. First, there was no sign of infection in the ear. Second, I didn't have a wisdom tooth problem. I neither had an impacted tooth nor an infected tooth. Then I found a dentist who wanted to sell me a special appliance to fit in my mouth while sleeping which would fix my TMJ. He wanted some big bucks for it. He said if it didn't work he would have to perform surgery to align my jaw bone (mandible).

The problem was that the inner ear, the wisdom tooth, and the TMJ (joint) are only about a quarter inch apart. Pain in one seems to be from the other. Also the inner opening of the eustachian tube is a cause of complaints with some people. It is farther away but still can cause pain in that general area.

Well that sounded like hocus pocus to me so I started working on the problem myself. I had heard that teeth and jaw can slowly change position over a period of time. I began chewing sugarless gum and consciously positioning my jaw teeth so that they would be moved into the correct position. I'm not sure that worked very well.

I think what was really happening was that I was having bad dreams at night and grinding my teeth and possibly gritting my jaw. Just the insight helped to relieve the problem.

Allen

pufferfish

I have had tremendous jaw pain and found out later that is is related to me grinding my teeth especially at night, when I sleep. I think that anxiety can be a major contributor to this.
So I finally went to the dentist-he knows that I am a survivor, but still I managed to put off going for about a month, until I was not able to chew or yawn without excruciating pain. Also I had terrible pain in my ear, making me wonder if I was having an infection in my ear with radial pain.

My dentist said that I have TMJ, and it was causing all of the symptoms. It is treatable. He fit me for a night guard and a week later i went to pick it up and since then I have not had PAIN!!!

Wow, I just realized that Allen has already written about the topic.

Anyway, this was my experience! I have had very good results from using the night guard.
I hope this helps you find some relief.
Google TMJ, and find out some info for your self.

Oh, and my Night Guard not that expensive and my insurance covered 60% of the cost.

Good Luck find some relief and figuring out what it is,

Logan

Thanks, Logan,

In fact once you know that you have the TMJ problem and that you are gritting your teeth at night, you don't have to get something expensive. Go to the sport's store or variety store and get one of those plastic mouth guards that football players use. You can't swallow it unless you have a very unusual esophagus.

Allen

pufferfish