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Does the Pain Really Originate in the Jaw?

Most medical experts assumes that because TMJ, the acronym commonly attributed to temporomandibular joint disorder, occurs in the jaw, the pain must originate there as well. Based on my own experience, I would disagree with that assumption. I think it is entirely possible for the cause of the problem to be in a different place entirely from where the pain occurs. Western medical doctors often think of the human body as a piece of machinery with stand alone parts that can get replaced when they dysfunction. Based on my experience I disagree with that line of thinking. I think we humans are build more like a deck of cards or a set of dominoes, where a weakness in one piece can have ramifications for many other parts or pieces of the unit as a whole.

Posture and Unbalanced Muscles as a Root Cause

When I had TMJ, the root cause turned out to be poor posture, which in large part was caused by a big knotted muscle in my left calf. The knot in my calf caused tension in the entire left side of my body and radiated upward. This tension pulled my left shoulder down so it was lower than my right shoulder, which in turn pulled on the left side of my jaw, causing pain in the joint. Initially my family doctor sent me to a dentist and physical therapist who both specialized in temporomandibular joint disorders. Unfortunately, neither one helped me at all because they never understood the big picture. Both thought that if they just treated my jaw the pain would go away. But their treatments didn't work because the symptoms of my pain were in my jaw, but the sources of the pain originated in my leg.

Dentists, Splints and Physical Therapy - The Saga Continues

In fact, both experts made my condition worse. The dentist made me a splint, which I wore faithfully for a couple of days as instructed. The end result was that my pain not only increased, but the splint threw off my bite and I my front teeth started to meet instead of having the tops teeth fit over the bottom teeth as in a normal bite. I stopped wearing the splint after that, and eventually my bite returned to normal after a few days. Initially though, I was panic stricken because I didn't know if my bite would ever return to normal, plus I couldn't eat any solid food at all since my upper and lower molars no longer met to chew food. I didn't fare any better with the physical therapist. He gave me all sorts of bizarre exercises to poke and prod my jaw. He even included one exercise where I was told to stick my finger inside my mouth to massage my jaw from the inside, My husband thought I was nuts doing this, but lacking any other options, I performed this exercise faithfully as instructed. The end result was that my jaw didn't get any better and just got more sore from all of the poking and prodding.

Alternative Health to the Rescue

Eventually, since Western medicine wasn't helping me, I started to collect alternative health books and tried whole body therapies such as trigger point, diet improvement and yoga. These actually worked and slowly but surely my body began to straighten up and heal. I also saw a physical therapist who specialized in pain and posture. He helped me to understand the link between my knotted muscles, poor posture and chronic pain, including my TMJ pain, With his help and my own book collection, I figured out how to release my muscles and improve my posture, which in turn eliminated my TMJ and other aches and pains.

Visit my connective tissue disorder home page to use my search feature and see information on conditions related to TMJ.

These sections may be also of special interest:

Diet and Exercise Treatment - covers the many factors that played a role on my recovery from temporomandibular joint disorder pain.

Exercise and Tips - for jaw pain.

Creaky Knees, Cracking Necks and Popping Jaws - tips to prevent snap, crackle, pop, crunch and other assorted sounds from your joints.

Low levels of magnesium can cause tight muscles around the jaw and everywhere else in the body.

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