According to research, as many as 75–90% of people suffering from “sinus headaches” have been misdiagnosed.

Sinus Cavities

Sinus headaches should include:

• Pain behind the forehead, cheeks and eyes
• Fever
• Stuffy nose
• Feeling tired
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Green or yellow discharge from the nose

If you don’t have these symptoms, then your headache could be a tension headache.

Ask yourself a simple question: If you have a tension headache, what could be tense? The answer is MUSCLES!

Muscles of your face and jaw share the same areas as sinus headaches.

Face Muscles

We can tense these muscles unknowingly by clenching or grinding our teeth, scowling, smiling for long periods, or holding our tongues firmly against the roof of our mouths. If you do these things the muscles in your face wind up running a marathon without you even realizing it. No wonder you can get a headache!

At rest, your teeth should be a few millimeters apart, not together, and your tongue should be resting comfortably in the floor of your mouth.

Try running your thumb inside your cheek above your upper teeth and gently stretching your cheek between your finger and thumb at the attachment. Do you feel the areas that seem to be in pain? As you stretch the cheek gently can you feel the muscles relaxing? Do you feel any relief? Then you could have a tension headache. 

Massage your forehead and temples. If this brings some relief, then you could have a tension headache.

Easy treatments I recommend are self massage, stretching your face and neck, application of ice for 20 minutes, professional massage by someone qualified in head and face massage, and behavior modification, including learning to keep your tongue relaxed, your teeth apart and your posture erect.  

In addition, you may need to see a dentist to fabricate an appropriate mouth guard to balance your bite. If your teeth do not come together at the same time on the left and right sides, you may be “limping” in your bite. This could lead to headaches as one set of face muscles works harder than the other with each bite.

Many people have chronic daily headaches that are produced by a perpetuating cycle: You’re under stress, so you clench your teeth. This unknowingly produces pain, which causes you to be stressed so that you clench even more. Because you have pain, even when you sleep you may be unknowingly clenching your teeth, so that when you wake up, you headaches is no better, and sometimes is worse, than when you went to sleep! So you continue the cycle over and over.

Whether it’s your “limping bite” or a day or night habit clenching habit that is stressing the muscles of your face and neck, leading to chronic headaches, we can work together to find solutions that will BREAK THE CYCLE OF PAIN! You can have HOPE for a pain free future! 

Call for an appointment today and we can discuss your particular pain scenario, then work with you to find solutions to break your cycle of pain. My ambition, my goal, is to give you HOPE that you will not have to live with the daily headaches you’ve come to consider as ”normal.”

Call to make an appointment today: 319/841-2150 or 319/431-7186 !