Treating TMJ

You've probably been looking for a way to heal your TMJ for some time. You may have read several articles, visited dozens web sites and even read some books. And most likely, the conclusion of all your research is: Nobody knows how to cure TMJ.

The only thing doctors can do is give out strong pain relief medicines or muscle relaxation drugs. There is nothing else they can do.

Little by little, you get immune to the strong pain killers and other short term medications and they'll stop working for you (if they ever did relief your pain in the first place).

Many dentist try to help TMJ patients. They make special dental implants. These implants, at best. save your teeth from grinding down at night. But they don't take your pain away.

The traditional health system has no cure for TMJ!

One of the reason why it has been so difficult to find a cure for TMJ, is how complex this condition is. There is probably no single cause for all cases of TMJ. There are rather combinations of several causes. And the causes are probably both physical and emotional.

Intense stress, grief, or anger often trigger TMJ. So can injuries (from a car accident for example). You may not even have noticed it when you accidentally bumped into something. Few days later, you began to feel this pain in your jaw. There is often no way of knowing what originally triggered your TMJ. Okay, enough of what we don't know?

We do know that the Jaw joints are always misplaced in some way. It's sometimes sever, other times it's minor misplacement. The effects can be extremely painful and irritating at the same time...

Clicking, popping jaw joints Grating sounds. Jaw locking opened or closed. Extreme pain in cheek muscles. Uncontrollable jaw or tongue movements. Clenching or grinding at night. Discomfort or pain to any of these areas. Limited opening. Inability to open the jaw smoothly or evenly. Jaw deviates to one side when opening. Inability to "find bite" with teeth. Frequent, migraine type headaches.

... are just few obvious symptoms of TMJ.

Another thing we know for a fact is, the jaw muscles are always very tense. It varies how painful they're or if they're torn but they're always too tense. These weak, tense jaw muscles will push your jaw further out of position and make the problem worse.

This is similar to what happens with back problems. The back muscles are stiff and weak to begin with. Then something happens, which puts strain on the back. Maybe working in a wrong position or small injury. It didn't really feel very bad in the beginning.

To avoid the mild pain, the muscles in the back get tense. It jut happens. This is a function nature gave us to deal with pain. The real problem begins when the tension in the back muscles push the spine (even just a little bit) out of place. What should only have been minor problem if the person had exercised and strengthen the back muscles, is now chronic, serious condition.

It's no different with TMJ. Something that probably began as minor problem (maybe small bump on the jaw or period of intense feelings) is now becoming serious problem as the jaw muscles push on the jaw joints. This, then leads to series of other problems.

The two jaw joints don't work as a team any more. You may even be rubbing bone to bone. No wonder everything is stuck. And the pain is horrible. Constant torture.

Nerves get squeezed when the jaw joints are out of place. This is, for example, the reason many people suffering from TMJ experience loss of balance. The nerve system, controlling the jaw are directly connected to the nerves in the ear, where the function balancing your body takes place.

There is no isolation when it comes to muscles. All muscles in your body are interconnected. Either directly or through the nerve system. If your jaw muscles get tense, so will all muscles closely connected to it. Most obvious example is your neck and shoulders. I'm sure they've turned into rocks since your TMJ began to develop. Right?

You may not have noticed how all the small muscles in your head (including the throat muscles, tongue, and eyes) have more tension in them now than they did before. This is serious.

As this tension builds up little by little, you'll begin to feel the secondary symptoms of TMJ. Including... voice fluctuations ...sore throat without infection ...swallowing difficulties ...bloodshot eyes ...tongue pain ...balance problems, "vertigo", dizziness, or disequilibrium ...feeling of foreign object in throat ...clogged, stuffy, "itchy" ears, feeling of fullness ...watering of the eyes.

...plus hundreds of other secondary symptoms!

There is no way to heal your TMJ, unless you loosen up and strengthen all the muscles connected to the jaw and the jaw muscles. This does actually not require hard effort tough. The exercises are simple and easy to do. But you have to practice them if they're are going to work for you.

1) The jaw exercises are self explained. They strengthen and loosen up the jaw muscles directly, so the muscles will not push the jaw joint out of place but guide them into right position.

2) Consider how close the tongue is to the jaw. It's no wonder how important it is to remove any tension from this muscle. You do that using simple tongue exercises.

3) Most people never pay any attention to the muscles around the throat. These muscles play, however, a very important role in your body's function and need to be fit. The throat exercises will do just that. (see secondary throat symptoms).

4) The neck and shoulder muscle exercises are very important to remove tension you may have in your shoulders and neck. These muscles are directly connected to the jaw muscle and quickly tense up as soon as there is any tension in your jaw.

5) Don't underestimate the importance of breathing. Lack of oxygen flow to muscles weakens them and makes them stiff. One more contributing factor to TMJ. The breathing exercises inflate your muscles with oxygen, giving them extra boost to heal.

Thousands of people have already used these exercises to permanently cure their TMJ. Considering how complex this condition is, it's amazing how well they work for many people.

But before you celebrate, let me be brutally honest with you.

You won't be totally pain free over night (although it's amazing how quickly these exercises sometimes work). It will take some time to reverse the tension that has been building up in your muscles for long time (even before you noticed any symptoms.

The muscles around the jaw must regain their old strength and flexibility. So must the jaw muscle itself. But that's not enough. The jaw muscles must guide and lock the jaw joints into natural healthy position. This happens little by little (often fraction of an inch a day).

Christian Goodman - learn more at his natural health alternative blog - is a world known health researcher. His Tmj Treatment Program has been proven extremely effective to quickly heal TMJ, Tooth Grinding (clenching) And Bruxing.