The Mindful Migraine

In the worst migraine I have ever had, the pain was so bad that I broke three of my own teeth.  (I’m not sure why I wrote it like that – who else’s teeth would I break – and how?!)  Not long after the major migraine attack, when I was at the dentist doing all the repair work, he said that it was obvious that my ‘bruxism’ was getting worse. 

Bruxism is when you clench your teeth together very hard.  It’s apparently similar, but different, to grinding your teeth in your sleep.  He could tell from the damage to my teeth, and from the damage to the inside of my cheeks which occasionally get caught between my clenched teeth.  I can still feel the strange cheek-ridges inside my mouth now.  Which means I must still be clenching my teeth.

To help minimise the damage that I could do, he created a mouthguard for me.  Two actually.  There’s a clear thin one for the daytime, and a really thick, heavy duty one (a bit like what sports players wear) for nighttime.  I also wear it when I nap, and when I have a migraine attack and go to bed to rest.  Just in case.  As a result, I haven’t cracked any other teeth, and I haven’t broken the porcelain crowns on the previously broken teeth.

If you regularly wake up with a migraine in the morning, or after you nap, it is possible that you are grinding your teeth.  It’s definitely worth a check up at your local dentist.

There are, however, a few consequences to mouth guards that your dentist may or may not tell you about.  First of all, if you have a glitchy gag-reflex, the mouthguard can take a bit of getting used to.  Even though it never goes anywhere near the back of your throat, the ‘intrusion’ in your mouth made me uncomfortable for the first few nights.   Worse is the long-term effects.  Because I wear the mouthguard for so many hours a day, my back teeth don’t touch when I’m asleep.  That’s the whole point.  But your teeth are designed to rest on each other, top on bottom; that’s what helps you eat AND it keeps your teeth in your gums.  When they don’t touch all night, they’re free to move about, and move they do.  The formal phrase I was told is that your teeth ‘erupt’ from the gums.  So, after a couple of years of constant mouthguard wearing, my top molars have come down from my gums, and my bottom molars have moved up.  What that means is that they can still meet in the middle, and I can still chop on my food, BUT they’re meeting in a new location which means my front teeth no longer touch. 

You know when you have a bag of chips, or whatever, and you can’t tear it open with your fingers, so you put the corner of the bag between your front teeth and use them to tear the bag open?  I can’t do that anymore.  My back teeth bang together before I can close my mouth enough to get my front teeth to meet.  In fact, I can close my back teeth and poke my tongue out through the gap between my front teeth – it’s that bad.  (I tried to take a photo for you, but all I got was too much nostril and a hint of a double chin – yikes – I’m growing more confident with sharing my image, but not that confident!)  It also means, as my dentist likes to say, “you can’t pull the ham out of your sandwich anymore”.  And it’s true.  I have to put the sandwich towards the side of my mouth to take a bite.

On the upside; the teeth DON’T keep erupting – they won’t eventually fall out of my gums if I wear the mouthguard for another ten years.  They’ve done their dash as it were.  Where they are now is apparently where they’ll stay (here’s hoping).  On the downside, they’re unlikely to go back to where they came from if I were to throw my mouthguard in the bin tomorrow (which I won’t).

My advice to you is – wear a mouthguard if it stops the migraines and will prevent you from breaking your teeth.  Just be mindful that there are consequences of that decision, and sometimes people forget to mention them.  Or perhaps, to be fairer, they don’t mention them, because they thought the mouthguard might be a short-term solution not a fetching fashion accessory for life.

Even if you don’t wear a mouthguard for your migraines – don’t forget that you might still carry a lot of tension in your face, so follow the ‘feel your face‘ routine I told you about to avoid pug-puppy-face, and remember to keep moving your jaw around.  Open and shut it.  Poke out your tongue out when no one’s watching (or especially when they are).  Massage the ‘hinge’ where your top and bottom teeth meet.  Give your face some love and maybe you’ll never have clench-teeth dramas at all.  Some people just don’t.

Which reminds me; years ago, as a strange party trick, someone asked everyone to put their three middle fingers together, and hold their pinky fingers down with their thumbs.  We all complied and got a Boy Scout salute.  Then they told us to turn our hand sideways, so the three fingers were lying on top of each other as it were, and try to put the three fingers into our open mouth.  Everyone laughed, and lots of people did it and rolled their eyes.  There were a few of us, however, who couldn’t fit all three fingers in.  Our jaws were so tight that we couldn’t open our mouth that wide.  I could eat and talk, so I’d never assumed there was a problem or noticed how much stress I must have carried in my jaw.  Over the years I’ve tried the same ‘party trick’ on myself as a reminder that I need to ‘loosen up’. 

Oh, and one last thing.  That thin mouthguard designed for daytime use, I mentioned?  It stopped working after my teeth moved around.  Rotten old expensive thing sits half-on half-off my teeth and drives me nuts with its flapping.  I can’t bring myself to throw it out though (I still suffer shame at the memory of my dog eating my retainer many years ago and the knowledge I had ‘wasted’ so much of the family’s money).  But the thing is basically useless, so there’s that to keep in mind too.  Pace your investments, and if you think you’ll need a night guard, don’t invest in a daytime retainer until your teeth do whatever your teeth are going to do.

Ah migraine… you really know how to make life interesting!

Take care everyone and keep smiling, Linda x

PS – Disclaimer: I’m a person with migraines not a dentist – be sure to seek appropriate advice from a specialist before making any decisions about your oral health!

PPS – here’s an article on the importance of good oral hygiene and some of the dental factors that can (indirectly) make you more susceptible to migraines: The Connection Between Migraine and Oral Health – Migraine Buddy