How can my tooth hurt, but my dentist doesn’t find anything wrong?
Though the vast majority of toothaches are due to specific compromises in one or many teeth, the experience of tooth pain can be the result of referred pain. When referred pain is experienced, the site of the pain complaint is different than the origin of the pain. For this reason treating the site of the pain (in this case, the teeth) will not produce relief.
In the offices of New York TMJ and Orofacial Pain, we commonly hear toothache complaints that are not associated with the teeth but are rather due to tight and irritable muscles, migraine mechanisms, or nerves that are firing excessively. This knowledge allows us to make the correct diagnosis first and then treat the cause instead of the location of the pain symptom.