Can sleep apnea cause jaw pain?

Video Overview

Can sleep apnea cause jaw pain? Sleep apnea can cause jaw pain. Now, on a normal night the person who has no problems whatsoever they will clinch and grind their teeth for about five minutes and that is normal. Now some people who have a pathological problem like sleep apnea, they can clinch and grind their teeth all night long, and when that happens, you end up causing a lot of compression in the jaw joint and you start to grind away at the cartilage disc and at some of the very soft sensitive tissues back there. Let me show you what I mean. On this skull here, you can see that the lower jaw and the skull, they are interposed by a cartilage here. Now, in an effort to breathe at night time, if your jaw falls back and blocks your airway, you will end up constantly trying to move your jaw and hold in position by clinching and grinding your teeth and that is a lot of pressure on your jaw joint here. So, you end up having a lot of jaw pain when you wake up. The jaw pain can last all the way throughout the daytime. Now, a great way to help at night time is to use oral appliance. The oral appliance will hold your upper jaw together and it is going to open your airway so you can breathe at night time to treat your sleep apnea. This keeps your teeth from coming together so your jaw joints do not get compressed and you do not feel the pain.