There are the usual awful signs your period is coming. Waking up with sore boobs. That first twinge of cramps. Feeling absolute rage at the slow walker in front of you. Then there’s the symptom hardly anyone talks about: your teeth hurt.
The mouth is not exempt from hormonal nonsense, unfortunately. A 2025 review in Cureus found that changes in estrogen and progesterone can affect the gums before menstruation. Some women end up with swelling, bleeding, or soreness around the teeth that goes away once the period starts.
Content creator @realhousewifeofwisconsin posted about debilitating mouth pain that always returned with her cycle. “It took me years to figure out why I wanted to rip my teeth out each month,” she said.
Your Period Can Make Your Teeth Hurt, Apparently
Many women in the comments knew exactly what she meant. @AprilLoxton wrote, “I swell up everywhere including my gums right before my period.” Another commenter, @Vanessa, said she had assumed she was the only one dealing with it. After all, it’s not like we’ve been taught this in school or anywhere else. And I personally have never heard anyone talk about it in my friend group.
Dr. Kalpesh Prajapat, a cosmetic and implant dentist, told Metro that progesterone has been linked to changes in inflammatory mediators, while estrogen affects blood vessels in the gums. “Around different stages of the menstrual cycle, some women can therefore notice that their gums feel more swollen, tender or sensitive than usual,” he explains.
A lot of women notice the same pattern month after month. The soreness or bleeding happens before their period, then fades once it’s over. Until you connect the timing, it’s easy to assume you brushed too hard or pissed off one random tooth.
The gums aren’t the only thing in your mouth getting dragged into this either. A 2026 scoping review found that nearly 30% of women reported mouth ulcers before their period, and researchers have connected them to hormonal activity during the luteal phase. As if cramps, sore boobs, headaches, and inexplicably crying at commercials weren’t enough.
If the same symptoms return around the same time every month and then disappear, dentists generally recommend continuing to brush and floss even when your gums are tender. If you have significant swelling, bleeding that keeps happening, or pain that doesn’t go away after your period, go see a dentist. Hormones can aggravate gum tissue, but persistent symptoms could also point to something else.
The post This Weird Period Symptom Can Make Your Teeth Hurt. Here’s Why It Happens. appeared first on VICE.
