Jaw Pain Chiropractic Treatment From Trusted Bournemouth Chiropractors | Charminster Chiropractic Clinic
Chiropractic Treatment for Jaw & Facial Pain From Trusted Bournemouth Chiropractors | Charminster Chiropractic Clinic
Jaw pain can be caused by many different things and can vary in how it feels and affects you. It’s important to know what might be causing your jaw pain, recognise the signs, and receive chiropractic treatment from one of our chiropractors when needed. The Bournemouth chiropractors at Charminster Chiropractic Clinic offer treatments that don’t involve surgery to help ease jaw pain and make it easier to move your jaw. By figuring out what’s causing your pain and getting the right treatment, you can feel better and do more of the things you enjoy.
Jaw pain is something many people deal with that can really impact your life. It can make eating, talking, and even sleeping harder. Knowing what causes jaw pain, what it feels like, and how to treat it can help you manage it better. This overview covers everything you need to know about jaw pain, like what causes it, how chiropractors figure out what’s wrong, and chiropractic treatment from the Bournemouth chiropractors at Charminster Chiropractic Clinic.
What is Jaw Pain?
Jaw pain means feeling uncomfortable or hurting in your jaw area, which includes the joints that connect your jaw to your skull (called temporomandibular joints or TMJs), the muscles around your jaw, or even your jawbone itself. These joints are on each side of your head and help you talk and chew. Jaw pain can happen suddenly (acute) or last a long time (chronic). It might feel like a dull ache, sharp pain, or a steady throbbing feeling. Sometimes, the pain stays in one spot, but other times, it can spread across your face, head, and neck and cause headaches.
Common Causes of Jaw Pain
Jaw pain can happen for different reasons, and how it’s treated depends on what’s causing it. If your jaw hurts a lot or the pain doesn’t go away, it’s a good idea to see a chiropractor or your dentist if you suspect your teeth could be the cause of the pain. We can help rule out what’s causing your pain and refer you to the dentist if the teeth are the root cause of the pain.
Temporomandibular Joint Disorders (TMD)
TMD includes issues with the joints that connect your jaw to your skull. TMD can be caused by things like wear and tear (arthritis), jaw injuries, or habits like grinding your teeth (bruxism).
Dental Problems
Cavities, gum disease, or teeth that aren’t aligned right can make your jaw hurt. Infections or swelling in your teeth or gums can also spread pain to your jaw. Sometimes, problems with wisdom teeth or a bad toothache can cause a lot of discomfort and feel like there could be issues with your jaw.
Trauma
If you have trauma to your jaw such as hurting it by taking a hit, have the jaw jammed into an uncomfortable position, breaking it or dislocating it during sports or an accident, it can really hurt. These injuries usually need to be treated right away to avoid more problems later on.
Arthritis
Conditions like wear and tear (osteoarthritis) or inflammation in your joints (rheumatoid arthritis) can affect the joints in the jaw (TMJ), causing pain, stiffness, and making it hard to move it. Wear and tear (arthritis) in your jaw can be tough to treat because it’s long-lasting.
Sinus Problems
Infections or swelling in your sinuses (sinusitis) can make your upper jaw and teeth hurt. Since your sinuses are close to your jaw, it can feel like your jaw is hurting when it’s really your sinuses.
Neuralgias
Conditions like a squeezed nerve in your jaw area (trigeminal neuralgia) can cause really sharp pain in your jaw. It happens when the nerve that controls feeling in your face gets irritated, often when you’re eating or talking.
Other Causes
Rarely, things like tumours, cysts, or issues with blood vessels can make your jaw hurt. Sometimes, stress or feeling anxious can also make your jaw tense up or cause you to grind your teeth, which can lead to pain.
Common Symptoms of Jaw Pain
Jaw pain can show up in different ways depending on what’s causing it. These symptoms can happen by themselves or together, and they might not always feel the same. If you’re having these issues, we recommend booking an appointment with one of our chiropractors here.
Pain or Discomfort
It often causes symptoms like clicking or popping sounds, trouble moving your jaw and pain in your face. This can feel like an ache or sharp pain. It might be in one spot or spread across your face, neck, or even your ears.
Jaw Stiffness
If your jaw is stiff you may find it hard to fully open or close your mouth.
Clicking or Popping Sounds
When you move your jaw, you might hear clicking or popping noises. This often happens with jaw (TMJ) issues.
Swelling
Your jaw area might feel swollen or inflamed.
Headaches
You could get headaches, especially ones that feel like tension headaches in your face and temporals.
Facial Pain
The jaw muscles are located around the jaw and spreads around it. If these muscles become tender you may feel pain in around your face, ears, cheeks and up to the head and skull.
Ear Pain
Your ears might hurt or feel weird. Sometimes this can be caused by issues with the jaw (TMJ), referred pain from surrounding muscles in your neck or head, or infections.
Tooth Pain
It might seem like your teeth hurt, but the problem could actually be coming from your jaw or muscles within your mouth related to your jaw.
Difficulty Chewing
Jaw pain can make chewing and eating painful especially when chewing hard foods and clenching your teeth hard.
When to Seek Urgent Help of Jaw Pain
If you have jaw pain, it’s usually not an emergency. However, sometimes you need to get help right away. If you have any of these symptoms, go to a doctor or hospital right away. It’s important to get help fast to prevent problems and figure out what’s causing your jaw pain. If unsure of your jaw symptoms, you can give us a call or book an appointment here for a full assessment and, chiropractic treatment if appropriate, with one of our Bournemouth chiropractors at Charminster Chiropractic Clinic.
Severe Pain
Extreme pain in your jaw all of a sudden, completely unable to open or close your jaw and no relief from painkillers.
Jaw Locking Or Dislocation
If you physically can’t open or close your mouth or the jaw being dislocated.
Signs of Infection
Signs of infection such as fever, swelling, redness, or pus along with jaw pain and signs of redness in the jaw joint or surrounding it.
Trauma
If you have a physical hit or blow to your jaw and it’s swollen, painful, or looks weird there could be damage that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Chest Pain
If your jaw hurts and your chest hurts too, it might be a sign of a heart issue as the heart can send radiating pain not only into the shoulder and arm but also into the jaw.
Risk Factors of Jaw Pain
There are a few things that can make jaw pain more likely. If you know about these things, you can take steps to keep your jaw healthy and deal with any pain early on.
Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
Grinding or clenching your teeth, especially when you’re stressed or anxious, can tire out your jaw muscles and cause jaw pain.
Arthritis
If you have a type of wear and tear or inflammation in the joints (arthritis), like rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis, it can make your jaw joints swell and hurt more.
Past Injuries
If you’ve injured your jaw before, like breaking it or dislocating it, you could suffer from long-lasting pain.
Dental Problems
Issues like cavities, gum disease, or teeth that aren’t lined up right can lead to jaw pain. Going to the dentist regularly and taking care of your teeth helps prevent this.
Stress
Being really stressed can make your muscles tight, including the ones in your jaw. This can lead to pain. Learning ways to relax and handle stress can help keep your jaw feeling better.
Gender and Age
Girls are more likely than boys to get jaw (TMJ) problems, especially as they get older. Hormones and using your jaw a lot over the years might be reasons for this.
Examination and Diagnosis of Jaw Pain
Finding out why your jaw hurts involves a few steps to get a clear picture of what’s going on. All of these steps help your chiropractor figure out what’s causing your jaw pain so they can give you the right chiropractic treatment.
Medical History
First, your chiropractor will ask you questions about when the pain started, how long it’s been bothering you, and what it feels like. They’ll also want to know if you’ve had any injuries to your jaw before, if you’ve had dental problems, or if you’ve tried anything to help with the pain.
Physical Exam
Next, we’ll have an assessment to check out your jaw. We’ll see how well you can move it, listen for any clicking or popping noises when you move your jaw, and feel around your jaw muscles and joints to see if they’re sore or swollen. We might also look closely at your teeth and gums to see if there’s anything there causing the pain.
Imaging Tests
Sometimes, they might need to use imaging or radiology pictures of your jaw to get a better look. This could include X-rays, CT scans, or MRI scans. These tests can show if there are any broken bones, wear and tear (arthritis), or problems with your jaw joint (TMJ).
Other Tests
Depending on what they find, we might do other tests. This could be referring you for blood tests and checking for infections or wear and tear (arthritis), or nerve tests to see how well your nerves are working around your jaw.
Chiropractic Treatment of Jaw Pain
Chiropractic care can help with jaw pain by using gentle methods that don’t involve surgery. These chiropractic treatment methods can help manage jaw pain caused by things like problems with your jaw joint or muscles.
Manual Adjustments
Chiropractors may use their hands to manually adjust your jaw by gently move your jaw and neck bones into better positions and movement pattern. This can ease pain, help you move your jaw more freely, and relax tight muscles.
Soft Tissue & Trigger Point Therapy
Techniques like massages and trigger point therapy focus on relaxing the muscles around your jaw. This can reduce pain and make it easier to move your jaw without discomfort.
Exercises and Stretches
You might be given exercises to do at home. These strengthen the muscles around your jaw and make your jaw joints work better.
Lifestyle Tips
Chiropractors also give advice on how to avoid things that make your jaw hurt more, like stress or poor habits. They might suggest lifestyle changes specifically to the jaw such as how you eat or posture to ease strain on your jaw.
Prognosis of Jaw Pain
The outlook for jaw pain varies based on what’s causing it and how well treatments work. For many people with jaw pain from issues like TMD (temporomandibular disorder), dental problems, or minor injuries, chiropractic treatment or physical therapy or medicine can be very effective.
Long-Term Outlook
Long-term results depend on things like what’s causing the pain, the person’s overall health, and how well they follow their chiropractic treatment and lifestyle advice. Some conditions, like wear and tear (arthritis) or serious jaw joint (TMJ) issues, may need ongoing maintenance care. It is important to know that many people can reduce their pain a lot and have a better life with the right care for them.
Short-Term Outlook
In the short term, most people can find relief from pain and improve how well their jaw works. Starting chiropractic treatment early and sticking to the plan recommended by us is key to feeling better quickly.
By following these tips and working with our Bournemouth chiropractors at Charminster Chiropractic Clinic, you can receive chiropractic treatment for your jaw pain to improve your chances of pain relief, better jaw function and better movement. Book your chiropractic appointment here today!
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