Has anyone ever had "clenching teeth" as a side effect from medication?

Question

I recently went to the E.R. from a bad breakout of hives from stress. They prescribed me Prednisine, two benedryl, and a pepcid a.c. for a week. Today was my last day of meds, but the last three days I have been clenching my teeth all the time...I catch myself clenching while I'm at work, mowing my grass, sleeping, reading, watching tv...Even while I'm talking, I'm jamming my lower teeth into the back of my upper teeth!!!! It's driving me crazy, not to mention making my teeth hurt :( Please Help...

Answer 1

Clenching/grinding is usually a symptom of stress. predisone makes some people nervous -that may be the culprit, or it may be totally unrelated. Is something else going on in your life to make you tense?

Answer 2

This is a common side effect of certain medications with cholinergic activity. It's common with certain antidepressants, the most well reported with Paxil

By Prednisine I assume you mean prednisone, a steroid used to treat immune reactions like hives. This is an occasional result of such meds. Benadryl I'm less suspicious of, lastly Pepcid is a drug in a class called H2-Antagonists, which are notorious with interacting with everything up to and including the air you breathe, and having all sorts of weird reactions that really don't make much sense.

Call your general practitioner, and ask him which med he thinks it is most likely, given your history. If you stop taking the offending med (I'd start with Pepcid), the teeth clenching should clear up when the med gets cleared out of your system.

Answer 3

It is probably form stress still or from anger because when i am stressed out or angry i clench my teeth