The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) or jaw joint is a two hinged joint that allows for complex movements to allow you to eat, talk, yawn and do things with your mouth. Swipe so see what the TMJ is comprised of: Muscles of chewingJoint capsuleArticular DiscTissue behind the discThese guys have to work together and work well to ensure smooooth talking. Your body is a great compensator so if things don&;t change, your body will adapt and can become a dysfunction or disorders. Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD) can cause a lot of pain and lifestyle changes. These are a lot more common than you would realize. Ask yourself the following and you may have some TMD or the start of one. Look in the mirror, when you open your mouth and close it does it open straight or does it move to one side?Do you chew only on one side?Does your jaw click, pop or make sounds?Do you grind your teeth at night?Do you get a lot of headaches and nothing seems to help?A good clinical health history and a proper TMJ assessment will help you with this. Follow me and stay posted for more.

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« When it comes down to it your body is like a well oiled machine. Much like your car, a little bit of maintenance work goes a long way so that you don&;t find yourself stuck on the side of the road with an engine that goes kaput. In order to prevent this, you make sure you get your oil change and have maintenance done on your car. Treat your body the same. Swipe for a graph of a graph demonstrating how stress from daily tasks accumulates over time unnoticed. When your body encounters stress, your body responds over time by working with the stress by compensating in order to allow you to function normally. A lot of the time these compensations can go unnoticed but create physiological change. It can take quite some time for these compensations to raise their ugly heads and manifest as something you notice; whether that be a click, a range limitation or pain. Once we&;ve hit this point, much more work needs to be done in order to correct this change. Swipe again. Knowing that stress can affect the body and cause change over time, the same can be said for positive change! Do your body a favor and perform regular maintenance work on it. If you do this enough, you can prevent more major issues in the future. If you want change, do something different everyday. Often enough this is accomplished by warming up/cooling down your muscles and joints properly. As long as you assess and correct your compensations you can prevent or delay unwanted change. If it&;s range of motion limitations perform mobility work. If your muscles are improperly balanced in strength and tone do strength work. If you&;re not sure what needs work, have a professional assess you and I can nit pick on things you can do to prepare your body for anything.

TMJ Self screen – Jaw opening. This is a test of your temporomandibular joint (TMJ) / jaw. It is a basic function of your jaw in order to allow you it to function! You need to be able to do this to eat. Try the screen. Answer the following questions. I&;ll be adding more and more questions to this series that will prompt some thought if you have jaw issues (whether you know it or not!) 1. Could you open it wide enough?2. Was there a click or sound? If so, on opening or closing? or both3. Did it hurt? If so, on opening or closing?4. Did it lock or get stuck? 5. If you have any pain, tightness or discomfort – which side is it?Answer these questions as they can indicate a TMJ dysfunction or TMD. Some other symptoms to note during your self scree of TMD include: HeadacheWorn teeth (due to the teeth not resting on each other properly or whats known as malocclusion)Painful muscles in the cheek, temple, or neckClicking or poppingEarachesPain behind the eyesRinging in the earsToothache What we&;re trying to begin to do is pain a diagnostic picture. As a clinician these are the structures I will be checking and keeping in mind with your answers: Musculature of the Neck, face, and jawCartilaginous disk Ligaments, nerves, and blood vessels surrounding the joint, mouth, and teethDoes this sound like a lot? Well it is! but we&;ll slowly delve further into the rabbit hole. series »