How Can I Get Rid Of My Jaw Pain?

Cures for TMJ disorder (Temporomandibular joint disorder) can be found for all TMJ patients. For some people, the hard part may be finding a doctor or dentist in your area with experience in successfully treating TMJ patients. The main reason for the difficulty in finding a TMJ doctor is there are no medical or dental "qualified" experts specially trained to treat the TMJ disorder. There are also no established standards for the treatment of TMJ.

But there are treatment plans that can offer cures for TMJ. Your first step is to try and locate a doctor with TMJ experience. You may need to network and seek out other patients in your area to see which clinics or doctors they are using. It never hurts to get several different opinions from doctors and dentists.

You should proceed with caution though and start with relaxation and therapeutic exercises that, if they are not successful, can be reversed if they need to be. For most people, exercises are all that's needed to provide cures for TMJ. It's also very helpful to treat the underlying cause of your TMJ disorder. There are other causes for TMJ but the most common cause is stress, tension, or anxiety.

What happens is some people will clench the muscles in their jaw or grind their teeth subconsciously or in their sleep. Over time, the teeth can become worn down or chipped, the jaw muscles will become stressed and sore, and the disc in the joint that separates bone on bone contact can wear out. These things can cause dozens of different symptoms.

The TMJ disorder is a physical condition and most physical conditions can be successfully treated using physical therapy. If a doctor suggests surgery to correct your problem you should definitely seek other opinions especially if stress is the root cause of your TMJ disorder. It would be much less expensive, less invasive, and less painful if your cure for TMJ was brought about by learning and practicing some stress reducing therapies and TMJ exercises that relax, repair, and strengthen the muscles and tendons in your TMJ.

If stress is the root cause of your TMJ it would be important to reduce your stress because the gains you realized from any physical therapy exercises (or even surgery) that helped you would be reversed each night while you continue to grind your teeth in your sleep. You can reduce your stress levels by learning some Yoga breathing exercises and reducing your daily "to-do" list. You could also learn to paint or play a musical instrument (but not one that requires you to blow into it).

You may also want to adjust your diet to exclude foods that are hard and crunchy like nuts or raw vegetables. You shouldn't be chewing gum with this condition or eating any foods that are very chewy. Also, if you have a habit of biting your nails or chewing on pencils or toothpicks you will want to change that.

The absolute best advice for anyone with the TMJ disorder is to find a doctor or dentist with experience that will design a comprehensive treatment plan which is custom designed for your condition that offers cures for TMJ.