The Chiropractic Approach to Relieving TMJ Pain | Chiropractor for TMJ in Brooklyn, NY
Hey, this is Dr. Dan from Vibrant Chiropractic care. Today we’re going to be talking about the TMJ, or the jaw joint. And what we do in this office to one assess it, and also how we address it.
The first thing that we also want to look at is the neck, because a lot of the nerves of the neck support on many of the structures that go into the jaw. So after that has been completed, and we know what’s going on in the neck, our next thing that we want to start to check is the jaw joint itself. The way we would do that is we would put our hands on the side here or palpate, or field and look for how the joint moves, we’d be feeling for anything obvious like a clicking or popping, as well as a deviation of left or to the right upon opening or closing the mouth. Those tend to be the telltale signs of where the jaw joint is dysfunctioning and starts to give us more clues on what we need to do in order to correct it.
Many nerves where the facial nerves can be affected when that joint is dysfunctional, because it creates a lot more swelling or inflammation. Oftentimes, we find that the muscles can also be knotted or tight or spasm. So in order to start the corrective procedures after we’ve done that full assessment, what we generally use in the office is the adjuster. This works like a little miniature jackhammer, it gently taps the bones to start to free up those joint areas and break up any adhesions.
So in the case of the TMJ, we want to align with the jaw. And just do a couple of clicks in order to start to open up that space where the disk in that six. The next thing that we would want to do is we want to do some muscular work not only underneath the jaw working underneath here, but along the sides as well as the top of the head where a lot of these muscles attach in which case, we would generally use percussion which is in very deep form of massage. And we would work besides as well as into the jaw itself. A lot of times they gives great relief. We usually see an improvement that day. But making it lasting often does take some time and repetition because the body has gotten trained into an abnormal function, and we want to break that cycle.
So if you or anyone you know is suffering with TMJ, we’d love to help out. Give them a share, give us a like, and we’ll see you in the office.