Can the Teeth Cause Dizziness?

Of course anyone reading this blog over the last several years realizes the intent is to rule in and rule out the cervical spine as a driver for the symptoms of dizziness, lightheadiness, drunkenness and unsteadiness.

Therefore, the question, “Can the teeth cause dizziness” is an interesting inquiry and not a common source of dizziness. However, for anyone treating upper quarter symptoms, it is pertinent to know a few of these outliers.

I would like to initially relay material from a 2019 case report entitled, “Recovering of Dizziness of a Patient with Sinusitis after Root Canal Therapy for Upper Second Molar”.

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Here are some of the highlights:

26-year-old male had suffered from dizziness in walking and standing. He had a headache while eating and tilting his head forward.
The patient consulted internal, cardiac, and neurological and ENT specialists to treat the dizziness but no success.
Videonystagmography, Cervical MRI normal and brain MRI showed sinusitis.
The patient sought out dental services. Without getting into details of the diagnostic and treatment approach, he basically underwent root canal therapy.
Two months after the intervention, the patient reported a complete recovery of dizziness and sinusitis; pain was reported as 0/10.

The conclusion from Amro et al:

Sinusitis is a common etiology of dizziness, but sinusitis of odontogenic cause associated with dizziness had not been discussed in literature according to the knowledge of the authors, which is the main finding of this article.
- This is the main concept I want to relay to our readers too…
In this case, dizziness was recovered, after the sinusitis had improved, with no major intervention other than root canal therapy
Recommendations of this study include the evaluation of any dizzy patient must include dental history and examination, to exclude any causes of dental origin.

Anyone who knows us, knows we like case reports and recommend students read these as well to help understand a clinical reasoning process. I just gave you a short synoposis above, but recommend you read the full text from the journal, Case Reports in Dentistry. Lucky us, it is open access article and can be found here!

You can learn more about the screening and treatment process of Cervicogenic Dizzinesss through Integrative Clinical Concepts, where the author and his wife, a Vestibular Specialist, teach a 2-day course. Pertinent to this blog post, the first day provides the most up-to-date evidence review from multiple disciplines to diagnose through the “Optimal Sequence Algorithm” to assist in ruling out disorders and ruling in cervical spine, including determining if single or double entity exists.

If you would like to host a course for your staff (either a vestibular, neuro, sports or ortho clinic), please do not hesitate to contact me at harrisonvaughanpt@gmail.com for prices and discounts.

Authors

Harrison N. Vaughan, PT, DPT, OCS, Dip. Osteopracic, FAAOMPT

Instructor: Cervicogenic Dizziness for Integrative Clinical Concepts

Danielle N. Vaughan, PT, DPT, Vestibular Specialist

Learn more online - new online discussion group included!

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