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This is a great question and one we often hear. The first point to understand is that TMJ is not a diagnosis at all. TMJ is an acronym for the TemporoMandibular Joints or simply your jaw joints. All normal healthy people have a pair, one on each side of your head. However, you may have […]
Last October, my wife Anna and I attended the 22nd Annual Bernard Jankelson Memorial Lecture Forum in Tempe, Arizona. Dr. Jankelson was internationally known as the father of Neuromuscular Dentistry. The International College of Cranio-mandibular Orthopedics (ICCMO) holds this annual conference in honor of Dr. Jankelson who died in 1987. The speakers were primarily from the […]
A complete discussion of the cervical spine and its relationship to the craniomandibular system would require a several day seminar. The comments to follow will begin to develop the impact of mandibular posture to cervical dysfunction and pain. The resting relationship of the movable mandible to the fixed maxilla is influenced by many factors. These […]
Headache (cephalgia) is a common complaint among TMD-TMJ patients. Consulting the literature on the incidence of headache yields widely varying results in study populations. This is due to the wide variety of craniofacial pain symptoms, including headache, and the various methods used to categorize headache pain. In spite of this epidemiologic confusion, there are some […]
It is a matter of common sense that a direct impact to the lower jaw, temple, or temporomandibular joint can result in injury to the TM joint. A lesser-known mechanism of injury is the TM joint injury resulting from trauma to structures, which directly or indirectly provide attachment to or are functionally related to jaw […]
Patients frequently present with mysterious pain or other symptoms in the head and jaws, which they do not associate with jaw dysfunction (TMJ-TMD). Recently a woman presented with the primary complaint of ear pain. Thinking she had an ear infection, she sought care from her primary physician and an ENT (ear, nose, and throat physician). […]
Recently, several studies have demonstrated a relationship between bacterial infections and degenerative TMJ disease. A study by Drs. Hughs, Hudson and Wolford published in the Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery (2000) found the bacteria, Chlamydia trachomatis, associated with the sexually transmitted disease Chlamydia, were present in 65% of a TMJ surgery patient group. Other studies have […]