Shelby Township Dentist Explains Sinus Related Toothache

This is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com in Shelby Township Michigan. 586-247-3500’s our phone number. What I’m doing holding this head here is I’m going to just demonstrate a couple of things with sinuses and its relationship to the top teeth.

So, we all have sinuses. Sinuses are used to lighten the weight of the skull. It’s also used to moisten the air as we breath in through the nose and so it goes to our lungs the moistened stage and it’s also used for residents when we talk we can actually project our voice better because of the hollowness of the mid face. And so with this skull which is a live skull a real skull, the sinuses basically lie in this region here from these top teeth here up into the area here and then sinuses are also in this region in here. What I’d like to do now is to talk about what’s called a maxillary sinus which involves us mostly in dentistry. The maxillary sinus I actually cut a little hole.

Pull out in this in this model to show patients about what it is that when extracting a tooth or when placing an implant is relationship with the sinuses. So, the sinus sits right here. And you can see the top of that sinus where it is and where the teeth are, sometimes the teeth come very, very close to that sinus cavity. And when it does come close to the sinus cavity there are risks with either extracting teeth, to exposing the sinus, or when placing an implant. And we want to make sure that an implant is not placed in the sinus.

So, that’s a really bad idea. We use x rays and we use, sometimes, what are called CAT scans to determine the location in the sinus compared to the type of surgery we’re going to do. The sinus is a cavity, once again a hollow cavity. Sometimes people’s sinuses can be quite infected, you know. We’ve heard of sinus infections all the time. Or sinusitis which is a swelling and inflammation in the sinus. Whenever we do surgery, we have to consider that. These issues that take place have to do with the lining of the sinus. The lining of the sinus is a very thin layer of mucosa that surrounds the entire sinus. And it contains, actually, cells, cilia, that ought to constantly try to move away moisture and things away from the sinus, including that sinus cavity, clear.

Sometimes people have allergies where these allergies, these sinuses thicken-up quite a bit. And we can see these on a CAT scan. But now its relationship to where the top teeth are here is if someone has sinus problems. And let’s say they go flying or they walk down the steps hard and the top teeth are moving, the sinuses will feel. The sinuses and the top teeth, they’re sometimes so intimately close together that they’ll actually feel like a toothache if they have some sinus problems. It’ll feel like a toothache. And when you fly, that changes the pressure within your sinuses. And that could also make it feel like you’re having a toothache. So that’s 1 thing to consider also about making sure you have a dentist appointment when you don’t have any sinus problems. Because sometimes they can relate with each other.

Another thing that we have to be concerned about whenever we place an implant in, we need to make sure that that implant is covered by bone. And we can do some procedures where we actually lift up that membrane and then allow bone to grow underneath that sinus. And so, we come underneath here, and then we can actually put bone in there and let that bone harden up. Then it creates more, the implant, itself, can be surrounded by bone. For example, this is an implant here. This is a large implant, okay? You can see that. If it was used for, let’s say, for example, if it were used for this tooth here, which it would never be. And you can see how close that would come into the sinuses, and that would be a problem.

So always, we have to consider lots of different things, including size of implants, length of implants. When we consider doing them on the upper jaw.

Shelby Township Dentist Explains Sinus Related Toothache

These are just a couple things that I wanted to show about the sinuses. The way it relates with your teeth. The way that it relates with having possible implant surgery. If there’s any questions, you can feel free to call our office at (586) 247-3500 or visit our website at thegentledentist.com. Thank you and have a blessed day.