People are constantly surprised to learn that their dentist is interested in more than just the condition of their teeth and gums. Dentists are a significant part of your entire team of medical professionals who work together and combine their expertise to ensure your health in their specific areas of specialization and in the areas where their interests overlap.
Your temporomandibular joint (TMJ) connects your jawbone and your skull on either side of your head. If you place your finger just below your ear on one or both sides of your head and open and close your mouth, you’ll feel that joint at work. Thousands of Albertans experience a cluster of symptoms often called TMJ disorder. You’ll sometimes see the disorder referred to incorrectly as TMJ, which actually just identifies the joint. More correctly, the disorder is referred to as TMD, but TMJ and TMD are often used interchangeably.
Common as TMD is, it is not particularly well understood. The goal of this article is to set out some known information about the symptoms, risk factors, and treatment options for TMD. We’ll also encourage you to involve your dentist in SW Calgary in the screening, assessment, diagnosis and treatment process if you are one of many Albertans who suffer from TMD.
Symptoms of TMD
The most commonly reported symptom of TMD is jaw pain while using your jaw normally and doing things as common as chewing, talking and even yawning. In addition to that jaw pain, people who suffer from TMD often describe:
- A clicking sound in their jaw or ears
- Experiencing lockjaw or difficulty opening their jaw fully without pain, if at all
- Ear aches and facial pain
- Headaches and migraines
- Swelling on the side of your face
- A stiff and sore jaw and facial pain generally
- A tendency to grind your teeth as you sleep
Causes of TMD
Our understanding of what causes TMD is a bit of a mixed bag. It is clear that TMD involves impairments to the TMJ itself. What remains somewhat mysterious is what causes that impairment in the first place. Some seemingly plausible causes of TMJ impairment that produces the symptoms of TMD include: blows to the head or whiplash, arthritis in the TMJ, grinding your teeth and clenching your jaw in your sleep, some autoimmune conditions, some infections, poor posture, and even emotional stress.
The pain you experience with TMD is usually caused by damaged cartilage in the joint, eroded or misaligned discs that separate your jaw from your skull and damage to the TMJ itself.
What are treatment options for TMD?
TMJ dentists near you use advanced neuromuscular technology to analyze the function and alignment of patients’ TMJ joint and to assess the viability and potential success of several non-surgical TMJ treatments near you. The results of those neuromuscular investigations may suggest that one or of the following treatment options may provide relief:
- Custom orthotics
- Custom night guards to prevent you from grinding your teeth
- Orthodontic treatment to correct misaligned teeth
- Minor alterations to the biting surfaces of teeth to change how and where they meet to allow your jaw to assume a neutral and stress-free position
The specially trained staff at a dental clinic in SW Calgary screen patients for symptoms and risk factors associated with TMD as well as seemingly related conditions like sleep apnea and sleep bruxism. Whenever you are experiencing any symptoms that affect or involve any part of your head, jaw, neck, throat and shoulders or that seem to interfere with your breathing or sleeping, let a dentist near you know.
They may be able to associate those symptoms with conditions affecting your jaw and mouth and may be able to provide relief through dental treatment or in concert with other medical professionals.