Can mild tooth clenching cause gum swelling?
I’m 50, have a lot of fillings, and suddenly started having flashes of pain in a lower back tooth (6th from the front) with heat esp but also cold and sugar. It’s had fillings before. It got bad but the day before I saw a dentist it gradually went away. The dentist X-rayed it and found nothing wrong at all. Then it started up again. The pain seemed to echo in the top tooth and along my lower jaw. The next dentist likewise found nothing wrong on an X-ray, and no extra pain when he pressed the gum next to the root, but found a small piece of apple skin and removed it and told me to drip an antibacterial mouth wash into the gum/tooth lining with my tooth brush. The flashing pain cleared up but the tooth remained sensitive. Now there is swelling of the gum below the tooth low down at the jaw line and a little more pain than usual. I noticed when I relax to sleep I snug my lower jaw into my upper jaw firmly, and that the first point of contact is on that tooth. I think this was since some dental work done a year ago. Could this be the cause of the pain? Thank you for your time.