Jaw pain part 1: What is TMD?
Do you or someone you know suffer from jaw pain?
Jaw pain is more than just a pain in the face, it can affect nearly every moment of your life, from talking, eating, exercise and even sleeping!
Not to mention how annoying the noises it makes and headaches it causes can be.
We see a lot of people with temporomandibilar dysfunction (or TMD) but we find a lot of people don’t really know what it is, whether it can be helped and most importantly, haven’t thought about the far reaching impact TMD can actually have on their lives.
We hope you enjoy our 3 part series on TMD. In this first video, Martin explores exactly what TMD is, as well as discusses the day to day implications that a dtysfunctioning jaw can have on your life.
As always, the video has been transcribed below.
Hi, Martin here from Align Chiropractic and today I wanted to talk to you about an issue that we see very commonly in our practice which is TMD or temporomandibular disfunction, a really long difficult name essentially saying that your jaw isn't working right.
Now when we talk about it you’re jaw not working right or TMD, there's a bunch of different symptoms or signs that somebody could have that they have TMD, the one that brings people most commonly to us is that they've jaws painful.
It's difficult chewing, it's difficult biting, it can also be that it's difficult to open your mouth fully or in some people it can't even be that it's difficult to fully close you mouth and bring your teeth together and even that the teeth feel like they're a little bit off center or even that the whole system's a bit out of whack.
Some people will have clicking, either in combination with the other symptoms or just by themselves their jaw clicks the whole time and that can be really annoying, while some people will have it not really causing pain but part of the reason that they're actually getting headaches as TMDs are a really common contributor to people who get in particular tension type headaches.
So it's something that we see very very commonly in our practice and we've done a lot of post graduate training in specific approaches in terms of how to address it, but when you have TMD a lot of people think of it before they have it as just being about the pain but for most people it makes them super aware of how much impact your jaw has on life overall.
When you have jaw pain it effects eating, it can affect talking, it can affect sleeping it can affect your ability to exercise and so when it's affecting all of those things it then affects lots of different aspects of our life.
Some people will find that it's much harder to work or they can't really work at all, they'll find that it impacts their roles in their family, as I said before it makes exercise a lot harder, a lot of people find that it impacts their social life because if you can't eat or you can only eat certain foods and it’s difficult to talk, you don’t really feel like getting out connecting with your friends and family.
So TMD is a serious issue that can have wide-ranging effects on people who experience it and it’s something that we would highly recommend that if it’s troubling you, you make an appointment to do a comprehensive assessment so we can develop a plan to really get things back on track for you.
So, if you'd like help with that, please give us a call today so that we can get you started on having your life back, not being impacted by ongoing issues with your jaw.
In a slump...Is it time to stand tall and stop your mum from nagging you?
Good Posture...I know, I can feel how bored you are already. I don't blame you. Can you even count how many times you have been nit picked about slouching?
And why the hell should you care right? I mean, who cares that you slump a little? Plus, its so hard to stop doing! You try so hard to be upright when you first get to your computer but sure enough, 2 hours later you find yourself leaning into the screen of your computer with your shoulders hanging from your ears and a back hunch that would make Mr. Burns envious.
A man displaying woeful posture...in need of nagging
As a Chiropractor, 2 things happen often in my life.
The first is that at almost every time I am introduced to a person or group, most people instinctively straighten their backs and sit or stand taller, as if they all instinctively know that 'Good Posture' is important (even if we don't know why) and that its something we only think about when prompted to (even though we know deep down that our posture isn't great in the first place)
The second is that poor posture is one of the leading causes the issues that we see in our practice every day!
Low back, neck pain, jaw pain, shoulder injury, predisposition to spinal degeneration, carpal tunnel type symptoms, migraines and tension headaches are some of the most common symptoms we see day in and day out and it doesn't take much Googling to find that a lot of these problems are either caused by, or at the least made worse by, poor posture.
So, how does having bad posture lead to these issues?
The answer is actually really simple and its actually a major part of understanding what we do as chiropractors:
Nervous system feedback and the body’s position in space
"The deeper layers of muscle are concerned with ‘sensing’ our position in space and relaying this information to the brain. If this function is taken over by muscles... (As a result) the brain gets an incomplete picture. The brain assumes that the body needs to be propped up to counteract the effects of gravity, so it triggers further muscle contraction. This adds to the general fatigue and pain felt by the person with poor posture." - The Victorian Government's better health website
The issues with poor posture appear to go beyond just the physical mechanics as well!
If I told you to imitate a person who is stressed out, anxious or depressed, I bet you would tighten and slightly raise your shoulders, pushing your head forward and making you shorter. Sound familiar?
Some authors discuss that consistently being in this position might actually lead to deepened depression, increases in perceived stress, circulation issues, as well as negatively affecting digestion, breathing mechanics and the we way we are perceived by ourselves and others!
So what can we do about it? Well I'm here to tell you that dealing with posture is both simple AND challenging.
Simple in that there are very basic ways that we can start to work on and improve how our body holds itself, yet challenging in that as Australian's, we are sitting or lying down for an average of 23 hours and 47 minutes, so we have a lot practice at bad posture to try and work against!
Over the space of a few more blog posts, I am hoping to talk you through some strategies to start tackling this problem, but until then, if you have any questions, or if yourself or someone close to you needs help getting out of their slump, please do not hesitate to contact us at Align on (03) 9696 1057.