All Care Physio for Temporomandibular Disorder or TMJ Pain
Do you know that our All Care Physiotherapists are TMJ Physios and can treat your jaw pain?
The temporomandibular joint or TMJ is the small joint either side of the face where your mandible or jawbone connects to the skull. The TMJ is a complex joint that is designed for mobility to allow us to drink, bite, chew, communicate and breath. Muscles are the driving force behind these movements with the larger muscles responsible for the force of biting and chewing. Altered movement patterns or muscle activity and trauma can lead to overloading of the TMJ causing pain.
Common signs and symptoms are pain at or around the ear, jaw movement noises like clicking, locking, or popping, altered bite or deviation of the jaw and even headaches.
Your All Care Physio are experts in the assessment and treatment of TMJ jaw pain and jaw dysfunction. We will implement a treatment plan which will work to improve your Jaw pain. Commonly, we work with your Dentist or Prosthodontist to correct any underlying issues like clenching or grinding.
Common presentations are overactivity of the major muscles of the jaw which alter the movement and force pressures in the Jaw joint. In fact, the TMJ is the only joint that can suffer a slipped disc that will cause pain, clicking or locking.
Treatment of releases of these muscles, jaw joint mobilisations and muscle retraining are the cornerstone to improving jaw pain with a home exercise programme to continue.
Other common presentations are jaw pain after a visit to the dentist where the jaw is maintained in an open position leading to jaw strain or direct trauma.
So if you are suffering jaw pain, book an appointment with our TMJ Physios today and get back to using your jaw pain free again.
What are the symptoms of TMJ and Jaw Pain?
The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is where the jaw bone attaches to the skull and is essential in daily activities such as chewing, talking, opening the mouth and yawning.
There are many causes of TMJ pain and dysfunction such as trauma, dental procedures and clenching or grinding of the teeth. TMJ dysfunction usually presents as jaw pain and may be accompanied by a ‘clicking’ sound or sensation. Headaches also commonly occur in conjunction with jaw pain. This dysfunction is diagnosed as Temporal Mandibular Dysfunction or TMD.
TMJ problems include clicking, popping, crunching, clenching and/or difficulty opening jaw.
The symptoms that can arise when you have TMJ problems include clicking, popping, crunching, clenching of the jaw, difficulty opening and closing the mouth, grating, locking of the jaw, toothache when there is no tooth problem, face and eye pain, tinnitus, ear-popping and earache with no ear problems.
The temporomandibular joint has a disc that allows the bones to glide easily so that opening and closing your jaw as well as speaking, eating and breathing is effortless. It’s important to note that the awful sound that you may hear from the crunching of the jaw is not the bones grating against each other. This is actually from the movement of the disc inside the joint.
If you have been in an accident where your face or jaw was involved chances are you might develop some sort of TMJ dysfunction. Those who have had a broken jaw in the past will need to have some rehabilitation to retrain the muscles to again be able to open and close the mouth, speak, eat, drink and breath properly.