Help for TMJ – What to Do

You are sitting at a restaurant having a wonderful steak dinner and you notice that while you are chewing, you hear there are clicking noises right behind your ear.

It seems as though your jaw hinges are not sturdy and each time you move your jaw to talk, there’s an uncomfortable sensation that starts in your jaw and travels to your ears that causes a ringing that makes it difficult to hear.

This discomfort even goes to your head and as time goes on, you’ll notice that you have a headache. All these symptoms point to temporomandibular joint disorder, TMJ for short. Clicking or popping noises while chewing, tinnitus, pain in the jaw, neck or even shoulders, and headaches are just some of the indications that there is something wrong with the “hinges” of your jaw.

When pain starts in the area behind the ears, stop chewing or talking for a minute and relax your jaw. This can be done by just putting your lips together without clenching the teeth. Keep your teeth apart even though you’ve shut your mouth. This relaxes the muscles in the joint of the jaw. Rub the area around your jaw to stimulate blood flow to the vicinity in order to alleviate pain.

A hot compress to the affected area for 20 minutes should help with pain relief as well. Begin to think about the foods you eat. The TMJ may be stressed by eating large pieces of food, or the types of food that are hard or chewy, such as nuts, or candy. Put yourself on a soft diet for the time being to lessen the use of the jaw and reduce the tension on the muscles.

Consider sleeping habits as well. You may sleep on your stomach during then night, and this position is stressful to the jaw since most of your weight is resting on this particular area. Teeth grinding might also be a regular event while sleeping and this action springs from overall stress during the day which in turn, puts stress on the TMJ. Dentists can provide help for TMJ and even mouth guards which will prevent night-time teeth grinding and also reduce clenching teeth during the day.

There are a number of jaw exercises that can be performed that can give more power to the jaw as well.   The simplest exercise will be to open and close the jaw, move the lower jaw from side to side for about five minutes. With more strength in the jaw, it can take eating of crunchy foods longer and will be less prone to muscle spasms when eating foods that need extra chewing.

Temporomandibular joint problems are primarily caused by stress, so other activities like yoga or meditation can reduce stress and ultimately prevent TMJ problems.

You might find that a natural exercise program such as TMJ No More, available on the internet, can help soothe the pain caused by TMJ and sometimes eliminate it completely.


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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 10:54 am and is filed under White Teeth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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