There is one area of the body that contains the muscles we use more than any other, an area that is essential to our daily routine and can be highly painful or detrimental when its proper functioning is interrupted.
The area is your jaw.
Temporomandibular joint dysfunction, or TMJ, is a collection of jaw-related symptoms stemming from an imbalance between the jaw bone (mandible) and the temporal bone of the skull, which are connected by a tiny disc.
- The Problem: TMJ can be linked to various causes. Most frequently, the culprit is an injury to the front of the neck caused by whiplash and deceleration from auto accidents or high-impact sports. TMJ can cause jaw clenching and painful locking that can obstruct chewing and routine use of the jaw.
- The Solution: Often you will not actually feel pain in the front of your neck due to the very low nerve-muscle ratio in the anterior compartment of the neck, but the impacts of damage to the area can cause extensive issues elsewhere. Specifically following an injury, it is critical to reset the cell memory through bodywork such as massage.
Key long-term functionality of the jaw depends on effective treatment for injuries of the surrounding muscles and tissues. Optimal recovery from TMJ symptoms is a goal you can share with your therapist at East Bridge Massage, where our experts in massage offer specialized modalities to get you out of pain and into the solution.
