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The most effective relief for your TMJ pain
I was in my late 20s when I first started having jaw pain. All these years later, I can still remember what my doctor said when I went in for help…
“There’s not much we can do. Surgery may or may not help and your insurance probably wouldn’t cover it anyway. So, we’ll give you something to help with the inflammation and you should get a bite guard made to wear at night. That helps some people – others not so much.”
That was it. And unfortunately, I ended up being part of that “not so much” group.
I spent years going weeks at a time where my jaw felt frozen, barely able to move it, despite the fact that I religiously took the anti-inflammatories that irritated my stomach and wore the bite guard that irritated the inside of my cheeks.
Finally, I threw them both away.
Sadly, my story is all too common…
Facial pain in the jaw area known as TMD (or TMJ for the temporomandibular joint) affects over 10 percent of women. Unsurprisingly, studies show that 7 to 18 percent of people with TMD also meet the criteria for fibromyalgia.
And, while oral appliances such as splints and the bite guard my doctor prescribed are the most common treatment for these disorders, relief can be hard to come by.
Luckily, a new study by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry has finally compared the different options available to patients suffering from jaw pain, giving us insight into what the most effective options for pain relief really are…
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Self-Care for the Win
For the study, the researchers examined what non-medication treatments women with TMD use to manage their pain and how effective patients perceive the treatments to be. The researchers examined and interviewed a total of 125 women with TMD, including 26 who had both TMD and fibromyalgia.
The most common treatments reported were oral appliances, physical therapy, and at-home jaw exercises. Less common treatments used were acupuncture, seeing a chiropractor, trigger point injection, exercise or yoga, and meditation or breathing. Most of the women used more than one treatment at a time.
And, what it all came down to was this…
Participants reported the most improvement in their pain from common self-care activities.
Yup, it wasn’t braces, splints or anything else a doctor could do for you.
Instead, the most effective pain relief came from jaw exercises, yoga or exercise, meditation, massage, and warm compresses.
In fact, over 84 percent of participants reported that these activities helped them at least a little, compared to only 64 percent for oral appliances. And, 11 percent of women said that oral appliances actually made their pain worse.
“Oral appliances did not outperform self-management care techniques in improving facial pain. Our results support the use of self-management as the first line of treatment for TMD before considering more expensive interventions,” said Karen Raphael, professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Radiology and Medicine at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s co-author.
What Works for You
If you have jaw pain and the traditional approaches like bite guards and splints aren’t working for you, don’t lose hope.
Instead, try the self-care techniques from the study…
Put a warm compress on your jaw muscles, take up yoga, practice meditation and gentle massage of your jaw muscles or try these jaw exercises. Relief is in your hands.
Sources:
By Dr. Adria Schmedthorst
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