Many people are surprised to learn that chiropractic can help with more than just lower back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Chiropractic can address a wide variety of health problems, including TMJ (temporomandibular joint) pain.
In a normal functioning jaw, the temporomandibular joint acts like a sliding hinge that connects your jawbone to your skull. Dysfunction in that joint can cause pain in the jaw, trouble chewing, headaches, and neck pain. Often when a person experiences TMJ symptoms, the root cause of the problem relates to issues in the alignment of the jaw joint and misalignments in the cervical spine. These misalignments can contribute to jaw pain and dysfunction.
If you are experiencing TMJ problems, you are not alone. 10-15 million people suffer from TMJ disorders. Proper assessment and chiropractic care can often resolve TMJ issues. When a chiropractor assesses a TMJ case, they look for misalignments in the spine and the jaw joint. Causes of TMJ pain can often include muscle tension, dislocated discs, or even degenerative joint disease. These causes are all related to subluxations or misalignments of the spine. Chiropractors are the only doctors trained to detect and correct subluxations of the spine.