Avoiding Orthodontic Disasters Part II

When a child’s upper jaw is too narrow, frequently the only available place for the lower jaw to bite is over to one side. This discrepancy may not be obvious to the parent as it is not easily picked up by the untrained eye. A chewing disturbance of this nature can put significant stress on jaw muscles and jaw joints. Some children’s temporomandibular joints and muscles may not be able to adapt to the functional shift that accompanies this unilateral posterior crossbite. The most dramatic symptom of this can be frequent or constant headaches of indeterminate origin.

Not so long ago, one of my young staff members in her early twenties decided she would like to have her teeth straightened. Her health history told a traumatic story. She had been having chronic persistent headaches since she was a small child. When she was 10 years old she was admitted to a local general hospital to test for the cause of these headaches. The testing went on for one month with no success. She was then transferred to a children’s hospital. Additional testing taking 3 months eliminated any life threatening or pathological causes, but there was no determination for the actual cause of her headaches.

She had been living with these headaches for over 15 years when I first examined her. My clinical examination showed a unilateral crossbite with a functional shift of her lower jaw to the right side along with poorly aligned teeth. The first step in treatment was orthopedic widening of her upper jaw. Once this was successfully done, her lower jaw no longer shifted to the side and with that change, her headaches remarkably disappeared.