Identifying TMJ Pain | Chiropractor for TMJ in West Omaha, NE
Hey there, Dr. Jeremiah Sample from Family First Chiropractic and I’m here with my lovely wife Crystalline. To talk to you today about TMJ pain, TMJ, what we mean is Temporal Mandibular Joint. That was a mouthful, right?
Where TMJ Hurts
So with TMJ pain, what we’re looking for his pain here and the size of the jaw, possibly when you open your jaw and close your jaw has a clicking some grinding or grinding your teeth, paying the results and headaches or difficulty chewing any of these symptoms would tell you that you’re possibly a person that suffers from TMJ pain.
TMJ Causes
Now, the causes for this can be several different things. One, obviously an injury to the jaw itself, causing the trauma or a shifting of the joint. Arthritis. We commonly find as chiropractors though is that up to 80% of cases involve a cervical subluxation or misalignment of the bones here of the neck can cause shifting and uneven musculature which will cause the jaw to shift when opening. While the jaw itself is the most constantly used joint in the body. It is a gliding and a hinge joint, which means it has a double action. So whenever you have a misalignment this, it’s very easy for it to constantly cause pain to gradually get worse. What would you as a chiropractor, then in order to discover what is causing your TMJ pain is want to do a visualization as far as where’s the jaw sitting on the face. Alright, what is the position of the head is it tilted to the side, often causing additional pressure, maybe even turn when you open your jaw does it close and open the way that it should or shift to the side causing dysfunction and muscle tightening and then stretching on the other side. Now we’ll also check then, using standard palpation the muscles of the face and the neck, see if some are stiffer than the others because generally with TMJ one side is going to be more taut than the other. Alright, and this will also use motion palpation of the cervical spine, upper thoracic and of the jaw itself to ensure that this joint is functioning properly. If we do find dysfunction in the jaw itself, the cervical spine will be recommended.
X-rays Help to Determine Misalignment
Next is the radiological X rays that we will take to figure out exactly where the misalignment is and how best to correct that of chiropractic adjustment. follow up care usually includes exercises and icing. For more questions about this or if you’d like more information about your own TMJ pain or somebody else who suffers from jaw pain, please leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!
