How Posture Affects TMJ Pain | Chiropractor for TMJ in West Omaha, NE
Hey there, Dr. Jeremiah Sample from Family First Chiropractic. And I’m joined today by my lovely wife Crystalline. And we’ll be talking to you today about how posture and your habits could be affecting TMJ pain, particularly in the realm of texting.
Posture, Texting and TMJ
So since phones are so popular now, and they’ve been around since 2006, I’d say the iPhone, they become more prevalent in our society and texting is a huge way to communicate. Now, ideally, in order to keep the head above the shoulders and proper posture, you’d have that phone out in front of your face up high, so that everything can stay in a neutral position. Now, anybody who’s texted for more than two lines of text will tell you that this is not actually very accurate on how people are doing this. And since we’re parents of a teenager, maybe we can show you better in real time what it looks like. Yeah, that’s the posture that we see out and about in daily life. Now, what’s happening here, and how it affects Crystal-Lynn’s jaw is that is putting a strain on the upper thoracic, cervical spine, the discs in between each one and on the nervous system as it exits, causing tight musculature and muscle spasms that then lead up to the muscles of the jaw, head and neck. It also guards to increased the pressure that the head puts on the rest of the body. So to demonstrate that if I was to have crystal and hold this bowling ball and she has it real close to her body, like showing the head above the shoulders above the hips. This allows the pressure of that to be absorbed by the cervical spine and stay relaxed.
Improper Posture
Now, if we just stimulate improper posture through texting, see how when she takes it out to that mechanical disadvantage becomes a lot harder to hold, doesn’t it? Yeah, so won’t last very long. In fact, I’ll just go ahead and take that from you. Over time, what that does is it causes not just what we talked about the muscle spasms but it will literally damage the discs that are contained within and the ligaments surrounding them.
If you have any questions about your TMJ pain, or pain, the jaw of a loved one or postural habits that could be affecting this please leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!
