What my toothache taught me about pelvic pain

I had the craziest toothache a few months ago. I was in agony because it was throbbing constantly. In fact, I felt this sensitivity throughout my lower jaw and I attributed it to the fact that I hadn’t had my teeth cleaned during Covid quarantine and maybe my gum was bothering me. So I got my teeth cleaned but it only helped a little bit. I saw the dentist after that and he told me that even though I had gum recession (no cavity), the pain wasn’t so bad that it was waking me up at night so he wasn’t going to do anything. Apparently, this was the criteria for having a root canal. So I narrowly avoided a root canal.

I went home and thought, ok, I was just going to wait a little while longer until the pain was bad enough that I could go back to the dentist and tell him my tooth was waking me up at night.

Coincidentally, I had an osteopathic treatment with Denis Rheault at Corelink for a different issue shortly after. Denis worked on my head and neck and lo and behold, my toothache was 80% better the day after the treatment! A week later, I saw a physiotherapist colleague who is also trained in osteopathy, Brad Boake, for another treatment. Brad also worked on my cranial tension and my toothache completely disappeared after the treatment. I was completely gobsmacked!!!

For somebody who rambles on incessantly about how the whole body is interconnected, etc…it didn’t occur to me that my toothache and jaw sensitivity could have been caused by cranial tension. I had this mindset that if something in my mouth was hurting, the dentist was my one and only answer.

So my point in this whole ramble is that for something such as pelvic pain, sometimes the cure lies outside the pelvic floor.

By Mia Dang, PT / a registered physiotherapist with extensive supplementary training in pelvic floor physiotherapy and perinatal care