Temporomandibular joint dysfunction (even though it should be TMJD since everyone who has a jaw has the joint…but not everyone has a dysfunction) simply refers to pain in and around the jaw joint and surrounding muscles. It’s often accompanied by neck pain and headaches, though not always. To locate the Temporomandibular joint, put your fingers just in front of the hole in your ears while you open and close your mouth.

The muscles that control the jaw are often tender and guarding. These often include the masseter, temporalis, and lateral pterygoids. This can impair the ability of the joint to roll and glide, causing clicking and popping as the disc in the joint gets pinched during the opening or closing of the jaw or both.

While the typical medical community might not consider TMJ a serious problem…anyone who has suffered from this knows that it can really interfere with your quality of life and be very painful….which makes it a serious problem for us! 

Symptoms of TMJ:

The symptoms of TMJ can include:

• Pain in and around the jaw area
• Clicking/ popping in the jaw
• Headaches
• Locking of the jaw (lockjaw)
• Jaw tightness and reduced range of motion
  

So what is the treatment for TMJ?

Well, it all starts with a thorough discussion process to understand what is going on with YOUR joint and how it’s affecting you. Then we dig into a physical evaluation to uncover what contributing factors caused this to come on in the first place.

Step one is to take the information from the discussion and evaluation and give you the most impactful tools/knowledge to reduce your pain and discomfort with the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.

Step two is to teach you how to deal with all the contributing factors we discovered and treat WHY this came on in the first place. This can range from lifestyle factors and ergonomics to sustained stretching of the joints (not just the muscles…usually the muscles turn on because of the joint restrictions, and that’s why oftentimes muscle treatment only gives short-term, if any, relief) of the upper cervical spine (neck and head), the thoracic spine, and of course strengthening any muscles that aren’t doing their job well because of all the compensations.

Step three is making sure you know how to prevent this problem from ever coming back! 

Contact our team here if you would like some help with your TMJ!