TMJD in Colorado Springs CO

The connection between your neck and TMJD in Colorado Springs CO?

Here are questions for people who may be suffering with TMJD:

• Is it painful for you to bite or chew?
• Do you grind or clench your teeth at night?
• Does it seem like every time your neck is stiff your jaw hurts too?

If any of these are true, you may be living with TMJD or Temporomandibular Joint Disorder. People that have been diagnosed with TMJD in Colorado Springs CO often present with pain in their jaw that can radiate into the face or neck, limited range of motion, and sometimes cracking or what’s known as crepitus when moving the jaw.

This disorder often affects a normal bite pattern, leading to painful chewing, drinking, or swallowing. When the bite is abnormal for longer periods of time this can cause a tremendous amount of pain in the jaw as well as headaches, vertigo, neck pain, and ear pain.

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How Do Your Head And Neck Affect Your Jaw in Colorado Springs CO

Let us dissect the anatomy of the jaw to connect the dots. The jaw is made up of two TMJs on either side of the face. The word ‘temporo’ comes from the word temporal bone which makes up the sides of your skull just above the ear. The word mandibular comes from the mandible which is the hinge-like bone that makes up the part of your jaw and chin that moves. These two bones form an articulation or joint about which the jaw can open and close when speaking, eating, or yawning.

What’s important to understand is that the upper neck and skull form an intimate relationship with jaw joints. First, from a structural perspective, the skull (and it’s weight of 8-14lbs) sits on top of the first bone in the spine known as the Atlas (weighing about 2oz).

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Physical Stress And Trauma Can Cause TMJD

If someone had experienced trauma in the past such as a car accident, concussion, slip on the ice or whiplash – these injuries can cause the atlas to shift out of a normal position beneath the skull. This shift often causes postural deviations such as head tilt and shoulder imbalance. Since one-half of the temporomandibular joints consist of the skull, the skull shifting or tilting on top of the atlas bone will cause muscular stress and imbalances that lead to an uneven bite.

Second, from a neurological perspective, the jaw and the actions of the jaw joint are controlled by a complex nerve called the trigeminal nerve. The trigeminal nerve is the 5th out of 12 cranial nerves that regulate most of the sensory input from the face to the brain as well as the motor output from the brain to the muscles of mastication (aka chewing).

The fascinating part of the trigeminal nerve is its size. It is broken up into three main branches all of which originate in the part of the brain stem known as the pons (which sits just above the atlas bone in the base of the skull) and travels down the neck to about the 2nd or 3rd bone in the cervical spine. While the main branches of this nerve connect to the structures of the face, that extension into the neck known as the trigeminal cervical nucleus [1] is what researchers believe to be most involved when it comes to neck problems creating jaw problems such as TMJD.

That nucleus that lives in the neck carries information along the same neurological pathway as the branches in the face, which ultimately end in the brain. Since pain is actually just a perception of sensation that happens in the brain, neurological compromise along any part of that pathway (like the trigeminal cervical nucleus for example) may cause pain sensations anywhere along that path like the jaw, face, and head.

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What Causes Neurological Compromise?

Physical trauma to the head causes the skull and uppermost bones in the neck to shift out of a normally accepted range in upright posture [2]. This foundational shift pulls on the spinal cord and nerves passing through those bones[3]. The tethering or stretching forces put on the spinal cord from that shift irritates the trigeminal cervical nucleus leading to pain and dysfunction of the jaw joint, also known as TMJD.

Balance Chiropractic is the only chiropractic office in Colorado Springs to focus on Foundational Correction using the NUCCA procedure. What this means is that our doctors first take a series of objective measurements (all with normal and abnormal ranges) to see if someone qualifies as a candidate for our care. After qualification, a precise correction to your upper neck is given without ever twisting popping or cracking. Once your initial correction has been completed, we immediately re-image the upper neck using our CBCT machine to make sure the best correction possible was given, and to measure the immediate progress made to soothe your TMJD.

To learn more about Foundational Correction in Colorado Springs call (719) 265-0115 to schedule your complimentary consultation today.

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Resources

[1] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/47/18358

[2] Freeman, M.D., Rosa, S., Harshfield, D., et al.; A case-control study of cerebellar tonsillar ectopia (Chiari) and head/neck trauma (whiplash); Brain Injury; July 2010; 24(7-8): 988-994.

[3] Grostic, J.D.; Dentate Ligament – cord distortion hypothesis; Chiropractic Research Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, pp 47-55, 1988