This can occur quite a bit a, a patient will goes to the dentist with a case of severe tooth problems, assuming it's a toothache due to a cavity or a root problems of sorts and it turns out not to be a dental problem at all.

We see this exact thing being posted on our forum many times per month so it is fairly common. The painful feeling is so close to one that a patient would normally feel with a toothache that they automatically link it to dental problems and not sinus problems at all.

Once you describe the pain symptoms to your dentist; which if sinus related will most likely be about teeth hurting instead of just one tooth causing the pain.

He'll continue to ask some questions and perform a few simple tests on your teeth--the main test they'll use is a percussion test were they will tap gently on the teeth in the area producing the pain. They check to see if the pain is coming from one tooth or from many teeth.

How are Sinus Problems and Tooth Pain Connected?

If the pain does have to do with an oncoming sinus infection, the area of pain will also most likely be located in the upper-back region of the mouth as this is where themaxillary sinus cavitiesare located. They're actually located right next to the root endings of the maxillary molars.

There are some instance where the patient's root endings are actually pressed against the maxillary sinus walls themselves--OUCH!

So now you can see that with even the slightest buildup of mucus in this sinus cavity causing an infection, the swelling of the sinus area will almost always cause some level of pain to transfer to the root endings.

The level of sinus infection and swelling along with the proximity to the root endings will determine the amount of pain a person will actually experience.