Questions About Tmj

Hello C.,

You can use lavender oil. rub some lavender on her jaw. that will numb the pain (that way she takes less pain meds...) I'd also consider going to a chiropractor. stop any hard/crunchy foods for now (like nuts, hard crackers, chewing gum, etc.) Good luck! ~C.~

Definately tell her to stop the gum chewing. That helped me tons.

Hi C.,

I myself have Temporomandibular Joint Symdrome but I have (so far) have not had any problems with it other than the "popping" noise and an occasional locking of my jaw when I try to eat large sandwiches. There are so many options to fix TMJS. A dentist can adjust your bite, make you a guard to wear, surgery, etc. depending on how bad it is. If I were you I would make an appointment with an oral surgeon and get his/her oppinion on what to do. Anti-imflamatory medication and everything else you are doing is pretty much all you can do for now. Good luck with your daughter. I know that this can be very painful.

I have TMJ also. The cause is probably genetic, I don't think the gum chewing would have caused it. But it will not help. The constant chewing will make the pain worse. If she really wants to chew gum, I would limit it to 5 minutes at a time or it will cause more pain. And it can be completely fixed if you find the right dentist. Make sure you find someone who has plenty of experience with treating TMJ. NOT AN ORTHODONTIST! Make sure it is a dentist. I went to an orthodonist when I was a teenager and they made it worse. Good luck.

I have dealt with TMJ for years (25+). It has cost me a fortune because my grinding cracked my back teeth which I now have now have 8 porcelon (sp) crowns.

I wore a mouth guard for years and ground right thorough it as well.

Things have been much better for the last few years but sometimes I will wake with the TMJ headache and I know what it is because my jaw is stiff.

TAKE your child to get some help. The mouth guard is a huge help... I don't know about you but it cost me about $400 a few years ago and I ended up getting it remade after one of my dogs ate one. So in hindsight...Keep it in a safe place. Mouthguard helped a LOT.

I no longer wear a guard but I know in an instant when I wake up if I am grinding due to the headache/jawpain I have.

Good luck

I've had TMJ for 15+ years. Mine started during a very stressful sophomore year in high school and would flare up during finals week in college, stressful work projects, etc. I had braces to try to fix it in high school and it helped the right side, but not the left so much.

The night guard does help. Surprisingly, though, I was seeing a chiropractor for sciatica pain during pregnancy #1 about 7 years ago and told him about the TMJ and he started adjusting my jaw and WOW did it help! I have a pretty holistic chiro who helped me have 2 all-natural births, and I often see him before calling MD for a Z-pack for a sinus infection. I've found that the chiro adjustments can help so many things...

Hope that helps! My Chiro is in Plano: Willow Bend Chiropractic (Park/Tollway) ###-###-####

C.

It amazes me that there is so much misinformation out there regarding TMJ (Temporal mandibular Joint) disorders. To help you understand I would start by recommending an atlas of anatomy. The way your jaw joint works is as follows: The lower jaw is shaped like an "L" laying on it's side. The top of the jaw (Condyle) is shaped like a fist and rests in a cup (fossa) in the base of a bone in the skull creating a "ball in a socket". By the way, the lower jaw is called the "Mandible" and the bone it functions with in the skull is the "Temporal bone". If you put those together, you get a "Temporal Mandibular Joint" or TMJ for short. So, to say you have TMJ is much like having a problem with your knee and saying you have "Knee". If you read the current medical literature, TMJ is typically called TMD with the D standing for "dysfunction", a buzz word from the 90's. If you have a bone rubbing against a bone you'll get arthritic changes so God's plan was to put some cartiledge betwwen the bones to work like a teflon pad. In the knee, the cartiledge is shaped like a donut because it simply has to stay between the upper and lower part of the leg as the knee is a simple hinge joint. The TMJ on the other hand works like a hinge in the first part of opening (about 22mm)and then it slides down a ramp on the front of the socket made by the temporal bone. When you move to the side, one side rotates while the other side slides. What holds the cartiledge in place are tendons that run to the muscles you open and close with and a ligament which is supposed to hold it in place from behind. The attachment for the ligament is in the middle ear which is why some people report ringing in their ears associated with their TMJ issues. What can happen is that the muscles can tighten down and pull the cartiledge off the front of the joint. This happens to females especially about the time they go through puberty. The hormones relax the ligaments (one of the things that allows a girl to become a Mom)and if the muscles tighten down, then the cartiledge gets displaced. If you open then, you can rotate fine but when you start to slide down the ramp, you'll catch the edge of the cartiledge. When you apply pressure to the cartiledge, you'll "pop" onto the cartiledge which is where the pop comes from. If you listen with a stethascope, you'll hear it slide back off with closing too. Now the cartiledge can bunch up or fold over which requires greater pressure to "pop" which makes the pop louder. If you pull hard enough on the posterior ligament, you can stretch or tear the ligament which creates a sharp quick pain with the pop that usually goes away pretty quickly. Sometimes the cartiledge can bunch up so much, you can't get over it - which are the people that report getting stuck closed (can only open 22-32mm).
Because of the age of puberty, orthodontists used to get blamed for causing TMJ problems since that's the population they predominantly treat. Of course at the same time they were being taught in school that they were solving TMJ problems by correcting bad bites. That made for great fodder for research grants. There were at least 5 major studies done in the late 80's/early 90's trying to show a correlation between bad bites and TMJ problems or another group that said extractions were the cause of TMJ problems. What all of the studies showed was that orthodontic treatment and extractions didn't make a difference. The chances of having a TMJ problem were the same whether you had treatment or not . Interestingly, what they also found was that over 50% of the population experiences popping in their jaw joints at some point in time with many of them not even knowing they were doing it until it was pointed out to them. Today the predominant thinking is that treatment is only needed if someone's experiencing pain, getting stuck open or closed (so it's affecting function/ability to eat), or popping loud enough that their friends and family won't eat dinner with them any more. Of the population of patients needing treatment, they found that 90% of the TMJ problems were found in females. For a male to have a problem, it's almost always the result of trauma to the jaw, neck, or head. In females, the biggest contributing factor is stress and how you deal with it. In short, TMJ problems are a manifestation of a "Type A" personality. If you think about that, there's not much that can be done to fix a personality (short of a frontal lobotomy - but those folks aren't much fun at parties). That means it's a problem that's not thought of as being corrected but rather managed. Note: if you have a problem with any other joint in the body, where are you going? To an orthopedic surgeon of course. They won't touch a TM joint though because they can't just go in and fix it. In fact, an open joint surgery is an absolute last alternative as a solution (meant as it hurts so bad and nothing else has worked, what's there to lose?) How does one manage it then? First, stay away from any hard, sticky, or chewy foods. They make the muscles work much harder which tightens them down and in turn the cartiledge we talked about. In fact, the world's worst thing you can do is to chew gum! You also want top avoid openning wide for big bites of apples or sandwhiches etc. Be very careful about yawning too...stay to the polite kind. If that doesn't provide relief, talk to your dentist, orthodontist, or TMJ specialist about getting a splint (night guard) made. 90% of the time those two things will manage the symptoms fine. If you're still not doing well, that's why there are people who have limited their practices to TMJ. The ADA does not recognize TMJ as a specialty but if that's all you do, you get pretty good at it. They will use physical therapy, biofeedback, massage therapy, etc to stretch out the ligament to increase the range of motion and or to relax the muscles that are over used.
Not to muddy the water but 85-90% of what's called TMJ doesn't involve the TM Joint at all, it's the muscles that are used to open and close the mouth. The big 4 are the masseters, temporalis', medial pterygoids, and lateral pterygoids. If one or more go into a spasm, or are over used as a result of clenching (think isotonic excercises) or bruxing/tooth grinding (isometrics), it can show up as back pain, headaches, or jaw pain (myofacial pain). It's managed exactly the same way though as an internal derangement (a problem with the joint itself).
Jeff Okeson has probably done the best research in this area if you want to do some "light reading". Hope this helps people understand what's happening:)

Hello, I am an LMT ( licensed massage therapist) I have several clients that suffer from tmj pain. I would suggest finding a good lmt or chiropractor. Make sure your LMT is nationally certified though