Comment Reply

Michelle,

Sounds like your friend probably needs to go back to the dentist, and explore whether she's grinding her teeth at night. One of my dear friends had symptoms almost exactly like this and when she went to get it checked out, that's what she learned. In fact when she went to a dentist about it later, he was able to show her with dental instruments where she was actually grinding down the tops of her molars. She got divorced a couple of years ago and is in a business that has taken a lot of job cuts, plus she's a very busy person, and she thinks that the combined stress of all of that is what got it started.

She was fitted for a mouth guard that she wears as she sleeps and it stops the grinding, which stops the pain.

Here's a very good story from the Washington Post about teeth grinding, which is called bruxism and affects about 10 percent of us:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903391.html

Grinding our teeth can cause headaches, jaw pain, damaged (even fractured) teeth, earaches and insomnia. The pain can be on both sides, one side or go back and forth, just depending on how we grind our teeth. (Sorta like we all have one side of the mouth that we use to chew most often.)

Here's the Mayo Clinic's page on bruxism, with blue links down the left side that lead to info on symptoms, causes and treatment:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bruxism/DS00337

And the National Institutes of Health has great information on this:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001413.htm

That page also offers some self-care steps that your friend can do at home to help relieve the pain until she sees someone about it:

--Apply ice or wet heat to sore jaw muscles. Either can have a beneficial effect.
--Avoid eating hard foods like nuts, candies, steak.
--Drink plenty of water every day.
--Get plenty of sleep.
--Learn physical therapy stretching exercises to help restore a normal balance to the action of the muscles and joints on each side of the head.
--Massage the muscles of the neck, shoulders, and face. Search carefully for small, painful nodules called trigger points that can cause pain throughout the head and face.
--Relax your face and jaw muscles throughout the day. The goal is to make facial relaxation a habit.
--Try to reduce your daily stress and learn relaxation techniques.

Since your friend mentioned that it felt like she had a big bruise there, I'm going to assume that the pain she felt was sort of dull and throbbing as opposed to sharp or stabbing. And I'm also assuming that it's not a sinus infection; usually people who get those know the feeling and recognize it when it comes. Other than an obvious injury to the face, the jaw is probably the most probable culprit. The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) opens and closes right below where your friend describes her pain.

There are a couple of cautions here, good ones, from About.com:

"When to Contact a Medical Professional
• Face pain is accompanied by chest, shoulder, neck, or arm pain. This could mean a heart attack. Call your local emergency number (such as 911).
• Pain is throbbing, worse on one side of the face, and aggravated by eating. Call a dentist.
• Pain is persistent, unexplained, or accompanied by other unexplained symptoms. Call your primary health care provider."

There's much more information on that page, including a set of questions the doctor or dentist will probably ask:

http://adam.about.com/encyclopedia/Face-pain.htm

Hope some of this helps your friend! Ongoing pain with no explanation is not only annoying, it's sometimes frightening. I hope when she gets checked out that she finds out it's a simple thing that can easily be fixed.