TMJ is a really broad term, but it’s an acronym for the part of the body that’s called the temporomandibular joint. And there’s temporomandibular joint disorder. It covers all kinds of things. And the symptoms can be anything from popping and clicking of the jaw, to referred pain up the side of the face. It can be debilitating for folks. It can make them shun doing all kinds of things. What causes it, sometimes it’s anatomic, sometimes it’s if the person was a forceps delivery, it can put torsion on what we call the temporal bones and their jaw joint just never fits right. They don’t mesh together.
Sometimes it can be from other traumas, let’s say an automobile accident, sports injury, something like that. Sometimes it’s psychological. In other words, some people are wired tight. They’re going to grind their teeth and that can cause damage to the TM joint as well. Sometimes it’s caused by, like I said, the way the teeth meet, the arrangement of the upper jaw to the lower jaw.
How do we treat this? There are all kinds of ways. You have a very conservative treatment with what we call splint or guard treatment and we also equilibrate the bite, adjusting how the teeth meet. I myself had problems with TMJ when it’s very early on. Actually, I was in my early twenties. I had this sharp, lancinating pain and when I got to dental school and my body adjusted, it went away. It’s just that simple. But mine was an easy case to treat. It’s real. I do treat people with TMJ. Actually, I include it with the full mouth rehabilitation or even single crowns or fillings.
For ones experiencing any of these symptoms that we just discussed and others, even people who have vertigo or loss of hearing from TMJ as well, please visit me. I can diagnose you and treat you here. If I can’t treat you, I’ll find someone that can treat you. We can take necessary X-ray imaging to do so. I have a CAT scan in the office. So we can contain costs for doing that and treat you right. And I usually have very high success rates with this treatment.