TMJ disorders can result in uncomfortable symptoms, including headaches, earaches, painful teeth, and neck and jaw pain. TMJ disorders also cause tooth pain because the issue often results from bruxism, which causes you to grind and clench your teeth. If you want to address tooth pain affected by TMJ disorders, we suggest you continue reading this article for more details.
TMJ Explained
Your temporomandibular joint connects your lower mandible to your skull, and its location is on both sides of the head in front of your ears. When the TMJ joint starts functioning incorrectly, it results in various issues cumulatively called TMJ disorders.
Problems with the temporomandibular joint can result from several conditions, including jaw trauma, arthritis, structural issues with the jaw, and bruxism.
In addition, TMJ disorders cause debilitating symptoms by inhibiting the range of motion in your jaw, making clicking sounds with mouth opening and closing, tooth pain when biting foods and various other issues that require TMJ treatment from your dentist or a specialist helping manage these issues.
Do TMJ Disorders Affect the Teeth?
Many symptoms are associated with TMJ disorders, including face and neck pain, tooth pain, limited jaw mobility, locking of the jaw joint, and popping or grating sounds from the TMJ joint. People suffering from TMJ disorders might also confront headaches, toothaches, and ear pain.
In addition, people with bruxism grinding and clenching their teeth might get affected by severe symptoms, making them vulnerable to seeking bite therapy for the problem they confront. The challenges facing people with bruxism include broken crowns and fillings, receding gums, fractured teeth, and sharp or uneven surfaces on their teeth.
Treatment Options for TMJ Disorders
Thankfully dentists have different techniques to treat TMJ disorders after identifying the root cause of the issue by examining patients. Generally, TMJ disorders disappear by themselves in a couple of months without treatment. However, if you have persistent jaw pain with its associated symptoms, dentists have various remedies to help ease your discomfort and provide relief from the problem.
Dentists help address the TMJ disorder by creating a customized dental splint specially designed for your teeth to prevent them from contacting each other. Wearing the splint can also help you deal with the problem of teeth grinding, preventing significant damage to your teeth to ease your discomfort.
The splint also helps move your teeth into appropriate positions with time to correct bite-related issues. Adjusting your bite to its proper position helps maintain facial structure integrity over the long term by relaxing the muscles and ligaments to eliminate tension and tightness in the facial muscles.
If you have broken crowns or fillings, your dentist can restore them to help strengthen the biting surfaces of your teeth. Similarly, fractured or worn-out teeth are treated to resolve the effects of bruxism. Therefore, whenever your dentist notices problems with your bite, they suggest treatment to resolve the issue.
If TMJ disorders cause persistent pain and discomfort, dentists might recommend over-the-counter painkillers to help provide relief. If common over-the-counter pills don’t help, dentists can prescribe prescription painkillers for a few days to help alleviate the pain.
Muscle relaxants and antidepressants are also sometimes recommended as a remedy for TMJ disorders for short durations to provide some relief from the discomfort.
Physical therapy with exercises to strengthen and stretch jaw muscles, including ultrasound and moist heat or ice, are also treatments suggested by dentists as non-drug therapies for TMJ disorders.
You might also receive help from education and counselling to understand factors affecting your behaviour that might aggravate tooth pain to help you avoid them. Some examples include biting fingernails, leaning on your chin, and getting over the habit of grinding and clenching your teeth by seeking appropriate remedies.
If nonsurgical treatments don’t help with TMJ disorders, your dentist might recommend surgical procedures like arthrocentesis, injections, TMJ arthroscopy, modified condylotomy, and open joint surgery. However, surgical procedures involve some risks and require careful consideration after discussing their pros and cons with the treating dentist.
Therefore, if suggested surgical measures for TMJ disorders, you must consult the procedure’s potential benefits and risks and consider all other options before accepting or rejecting the proposal.
If you are fortunate, the TMJ disorder might disappear without intensive treatment. However, a bite therapy provider may be able to help you overcome the problem if it results from bruxism or other similar issues.
If you encounter tooth pain because of TMJ disorders, your dentist can help you manage and recover from the problem by providing nonsurgical therapies. Consult with this practice today to overcome the problem with your temporomandibular joint with ease.
Have more questions about symptoms related to TMJ disorder and your treatment options?
Your dentist will be able to answer your questions about TMJ disorder and help you decide on the correct treatment option for you.
