Dental Team

Children who get regular headaches may have problems with how their teeth come together, a study says.

Researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo studied 50 children. They ranged in age from 8 to 16. They all said they had regular headaches. These children were compared with 50 children who did not have regular headaches.

The researchers looked at plaster models / dental casts of the children's teeth. They found that the children who had regular headaches were more likely to have an overbite. This is when the top front teeth cover most or all of the bottom front teeth when you bite down.

Children with headaches also were more likely to have a posterior crossbite. This is when the top and bottom back teeth do not touch properly when you bite down.

Children with either of these bite problems were more than three times as likely as other kids to have regular headaches. A child with both conditions was nearly nine times as likely to have regular headaches.

None of the children in the study had problems with their jaw joints. Headaches are a common symptom of these problems, which are also called temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders. So researchers excluded children with TMJ problems from this study.

The research does not show that bite problems are causing the headaches.

The study appears in the December 2007 issue of the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics.

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