How To Fix and Prevent Jaw Pain
- Jeremy Tarwater PT, DPT
- Aug 1, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated July 21, 2022
Introduction
Do you have pain in your jaw, especially when eating or talking? Or have you started noticing your jaw clicking throughout the day? If you said yes to either of these questions, you’ve come to the right place. If you said no to these questions, you still came to the right place. Just like any other joint in our body, the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) needs to move properly to avoid future injuries or other symptoms such as headaches, ear or jaw pain, and much more!
Per usual, I will get real nerdy first because it’s what I enjoy. Then we will get to specific treatments to help you fix and/or prevent jaw pain.
Anatomy
The Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) can be a little tricky and confusing, which is why many healthcare providers don’t have a lot of answers when it comes to jaw pain. The most confusing part is that it moves differently than any other joint in the body.
When you open your mouth, how do you picture your jaw actually moving? Most patients describe to me a motion that resembles an alligator. Looking from an outside perspective, it kind of does look that way. But let’s take a deeper look.
In the first image above you will see the jaw closed and open on second picture. Notice how as the mouth opens up, the top portion of the jaw also slides forward. This allows us to open our mouths further.
You can also see my beautiful illustration of a disc above. This disc acts like the meniscus in the knee as it helps lubricate the TMJ and help it move properly during everyday movements. Usually, this disc moves forward with the top portion of the jaw. But it is very common for that disc to be displaced due to previous trauma, clenching your teeth, or even from opening your mouth too wide. When the disc is displaced, all of the surrounding muscles tighten up to protect the joint (1).
Associated Symptoms
The biggest surprise to me as I began to treat more patients with TMJ Disorder, otherwise stated as TMD, was that many of them didn’t complain of just jaw pain. I have seen patients who actually didn’t have any jaw pain at all. A dysfunction at the TMJ can also cause ear or tooth pain, headaches, ringing in the ears, and stiffness in the neck. It was interesting to find out how clenching the jaw can lead to so many other issues!
Headache Connection
Almost all of the patients I see with TMD report headaches. Clenching the jaw will tighten other muscles around it, causing headache symptoms in various spots around the skull. Actually when I think about it, most people I know even outside of the therapy world get headaches. There has to be some way to fix this right?
Raise your hand if you have a list of things you try every time you have a headache or a migraine. Put your hand down if everything on that list works every single time. I know your hand is still up, you can put it down now to save some energy. My list used to include: lay down, turn the lights down (or put on sunglasses), find a quiet area, eat comfort food, drink a lot of water, use an ice pack or cold washcloth on my head. And if all of that didn’t work I would finally resort to the ibuprofen that I was trying to avoid.
The trick I use most often now with both patients and myself is called the headache game. I learned this game from a podcast years ago and if you keep an open mind while playing the game, it will likely help you out as well. Ready?
Find a comfortable seat to relax with low lighting.
Begin to practice deep belly breathing (if you aren’t sure how to do this correctly, watch the first video below).
In between each breath, you will answer the following question:
Where is your headache? (provide a specific location)
After you have located your headache, answer the next question:
How big is your headache? (compare it to a ball or fruit or a coin)
Now here is where things get a little weird, just stick with me for the last question:
What color is your headache? (if nothing comes to mind right away, make something up)
Repeat this process while answering the questions in between each breath and hopefully your headache will begin to decrease in size or possibly go away!
Let me know if this worked for you as it has worked for a lot of my patients and close friends/family. The reason why it works so often is because it makes you challenge your headache and think about it directly. You can’t ignore it and go through your list of the usual headache breakers when you are trying to answer my silly question of what color the stupid thing is.
There will be more information and videos on headaches available for you in the future! I also created a video of this below if you want to hear me asking you the questions so you can focus on your breathing and relax.
Treatment Options
So back to the jaw. As stated above, most jaw pain is caused by muscle tension and clenching the surrounding muscles. Some of those surrounding muscles include the ones connecting your head to the rest of your body via the neck. I have a few exercise videos below to help you both avoid clenching and stretch out those tight muscles!!
Conclusion
Treating patients with TMD and/or headaches is my favorite part about my job. We get to sit around and make faces at each other for a while and in general, most patients get better. The best part is that even if I cannot take the ringing out of a patient’s ears or completely fix their jaw so they never clench it again, I can still make an impact on their daily life and function. Jaw pain and headaches are dysfunctions that many therapists thrive with treating, so this is one where seeing a Physical Therapist that has some training in this would be VERY beneficial!!
References
1. Moore KL, Dalley AF, Agur AMR. Clinically Oriented Anatomy. 8th ed. Wolters Kluwer; 2018.
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Last updated April 24, 2022
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