What Is Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ)?

When someone gives you the encouraging saying "Don't worry, be happy", it can fall on deaf ears. The stresses of life vary for everyone and so does the way in which we deal with it. Some people can just roll through it, others feel better from an after work drink, and still others can go to the gym to work through their issues. For another segment of the population, however, they worry and stress themselves into actual disorders like temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJ.

Many patients afflicted with TMJ won't recognize the symptoms for months since, for a lot of them, the cause is the grinding of their teeth during the night. This grinding is a direct result of the stress they feel as they're awake and are not able to properly deal with.

These symptoms vary, but they all include pain. This is because of the activity that the jaw does every day, all day. It is our jaws that allow us to talk, to chew, and to even yawn. We cannot just take a rest for a few weeks from talking and eating, so the issues tend to exacerbate over time.

Usually, soreness is confined to the jaw itself, but it can spread up and make the ears hurt, as well as give sufferers intermittent headaches. It is when patients find that they have difficulty opening and closing their mouths that they realize things are worse than they thought.

The causes of TMJ, for most who suffer from it, are directly related to stress, but there are other, different, risk factors. Arthritis sufferers can have their disease spread to this joint. Also, injuries can lead to TMJ symptoms. This is overall, however, a woman's disease and usually strikes between the ages of 30 and 50 predominantly.

Thankfully, treating this problem, in most cases, is relatively simple and doesn't have to involve any surgical interventions. This is because, in those cases, it is an overworking of the muscles and not the erosion of cartilage or joints.

Depending on the severity suspected by your doctor, examination may entail an x-ray, CT scan, or MRI. The latter two can give more detailed images of the bones involves, as well as if the problem lies with the actual joint disks.

Getting through the pain as you go through treatment usually just involves taking some pain killers or muscle relaxers. In some patients it can be found that the TMJ itself is not the main problem, but is just the physical manifestation of something deeper like depression. In fact, anti-depressants have been found to work for a number of patients.

More severe cases have to deal with injections into sites of damage, which can be quite painful, but the effects are immediate. Corticosteroids are usually used for those who already have arthritis and this is a powerful, long term, anti-inflammatory. Another option is Botox which will paralyze the nerves for the time being so that you can heal without pain.

In conjunction with medications, many sufferers will get bite guards which are just soft teeth molds they can wear as they sleep so as not to grind their teeth together. Cognitive behavioral therapy has made many strides with those that have TMJ because of stress. Using a variety of different stress relieving techniques patients can calm down their body's reactions to daily issues.