What Natural Things Can I do to Help My TMJ Pain?
If you are experiencing chronic TMJ pain, we know that you are looking for relief and natural, effective things you can do to help yourself. We are physical therapists who specialize in treating acute and chronic TMJ pain and we provide treatment in-person in Grand Rapids, Michigan or via remote consultation to help your jaw, neck, headaches and other areas improve.
Our physical therapy to help TMJ pain includes a combination of exercise, postural correction, downtraining the stress response, improving neck and jaw mobility, trigger point release, fascia treatment and other manual therapies and education to alleviate TMJ and neck pain.
Read on to learn some suggestions we commonly offer our patients that include natural things for TMJ pain. If you may be interested in physical therapy for your TMJ problem, offered in-person in Grand Rapids, Michigan or with a remote consult for those who qualify, call us today to speak with one of our knowledgable staff members at 616-516-4334 or ask us a question here and we will be in touch.
The first natural thing you should consider for your TMJ pain is physical therapy. Our licensed physical therapists provide gentle, comprehensive treatment for your TMJ pain so you have less pain and improved ability to chew, talk, open and close your jaw.
Our patients come to us frustrated by TMJ night guards, the inability to chew and chronic TMJ, neck or headache pain. While bite correction, night guards and dental work are important components of addressing chronic TMJ pain, we find that these things do not resolve muscle tension, fascia restrictions, mal-adaptive posture, and weakness or muscular imbalances in the jaw, neck, shoulder blades and other areas. PT is a natural solution that truly reblances your body to allow your jaw and neck to function better, without pain. Because our PTs specialize in treating pelvic and TMJ disorders, you will find a higher level of service and treatment plans with us. To ask us a question about your condition and our services, which are offered in-person in Grand Rapids, Michigan or via remote consultation if you qualify, call 616-516-4334 or contact us here.
The goals of physical therapy in the treatment of TMD are to decrease pain, enable muscle relaxation, reduce muscular hyperactivity, and re-establish muscle function and joint mobility.
-Armijo-Olivo S, et al. Manual Therapy and Therapeutic Exercise for Temporomandibular Disorders
Physical Therapy for Jaw Pain Helps Improve Your Jaw Opening! And the beauty of physical therapy is that it is a natural treatment to help TMJ, without pharmaceuticals, injections, dental work or surgery.
Our patients come to us looking for long-term relief of their recurrent TMJ flare ups. While some patients benefit from splinting to improve acute loss of jaw opening, they tell us that their jaw pain never truly resolves and they want to correct the underlying issues causing the jaw pain to occur in the first place. PT is your answer. By giving you the tools to naturally improve your body’s muscular, joint and fascia structures, you will notice a restoration of your jaw. Research supports that physical therapy helps improve your ability to open your mouth. We also know that PT alleviates muscle pain and tension.
When looking at active mouth opening, we found that manual therapy plus exercises significantly increased active mouth opening compared with splint therapy, self-care, or medications.
-Armijo-Olivo S, et al. Manual Therapy and Therapeutic Exercise for Temporomandibular Disorders
Do you have limited jaw opening? We can help you! Skeptical? Here is one person’s story of how PT helped her improve her jaw opening by 41%!
This person had already completed orthodontics and customized night guards from her TMJ specialist dentist. Yet, her jaw pain and limited mobility persisted. She was frustrated by ongoing headaches and limited jaw opening that caused it to be difficult to brush her teeth and insert food that was not “cut into itty-bitty pieces” into her mouth.
Upon evaluation her TMJ opening measured at 17 mm, a very restricted range of motion. We identified substantial muscle guarding in her jaw, skull, face and neck. She also had posture with her head quite a bit forward of her body and a hump in her upper back region with weakness in the shoulder blades and tightness in her pecs and chest. We found weakness in her deep neck muscles and myofascial restrictions throughout her spine and shoulders. PT included a variety of hands-on treatments, myofascial release, joint mobilization, postural correction, active stretching, dry needling and self-care instruction.
Following several sessions her jaw opening improved to 24 mm, a 41% improvement! However, 24 mm continues to be a restricted opening and we have more work to do. Thus, we are continuing to advance her PT program to further her progress. Each visit she describes immediate pain relief and improvement in jaw opening.
Because our TMJ PTs are also pelvic health specialists, we understand the unique role of how to provide head to pelvis care. In fact, did you know that TMJ syndrome is linked with Irritable Bowel Disease?
IBS patients had a more than three times greater risk of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) compared to healthy controls.
-Gallotta S, Bruno V, Catapano S, Mobilio N, Ciacci C, Iovino P. High risk of temporomandibular disorder in irritable bowel syndrome: Is there a correlation with greater illness severity?
We routinely treat IBS as part of our care for pelvic patients. If you have chronic TMJ pain and also experience IBS, we can provide you treatment for both. We find that any condition that imbalances your muscles and nervous system (such as IBS, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, EDS chronic pain, TMJ pain, chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, vulvodynia) needs whole body care to best ease your main complaint. Many of our TMJ patients are suprised that our PT may include visceral (abdominal) massage, gentle pelvic and lumbar spine treatment, balancing of your pelvis and more. To properly ease TMJ pain, we must treat all drivers of pain and bring balance to your nervous system, posture, muscles and joints. If interested in learning more about our in-person treatment in Grand Rapids, Michigan or a remote consultation for those who qualify, call us at 616-516-4334 or ask us your questions here.
If you are tired of experiencing chronic TMJ pain, neck pain, headaches, back or pelvic pain, our licensed physical therapists have many years’ experience and advanced training specific to helping you naturally ease your TMJ suffering.
Whereas medications have side effects, aren’t truly helpful and only mask pain, physical therapy is a natural pathway forward that harnesses the power of your body to improve your TMJ pain. When a person has chronic TMJ pain they may experience difficulty with yawning, chewing, talking, sleeping, headaches and breathing. We are here to help you get back to functioning at a higher level. We know how to alleviate pain while improving jaw and neck joint mobility & function and we are devoted to getting you relief. If you are interested in learning more about our natural treatments for TMJ pain, call 616-516-4334 or contact us here.
8 Natural things that we may suggest our patients who have TMJ pain do to help themselves.
1. Address posture and improve tendencies to slouch. This means we recommend the head sit squarely on top of the shoulders, the ribcage be on top of the pelvis, the pelvis and low back be in alignment and the hips, knees and feet be aligned.
This is easier said than done, which is why our PT is directed to improve this problem, using a variety of treatments. Over the years your fascia, joints and muscles may have adapted to a position where the head is in front of the shoulders. In physical therapy we show our patients how we want them to align their posture, from the feet to the crown of the head. When the joints, muscles and fascia have adaptively changed to put you into a posture with forward head, your jaw will experience strain and tension. The natural treatments we use to help restore your posture a numerous and may include myofascial release to your head, neck, chest, hips and other regions that may be contributing to your misaligned posture. We also include postural corrective exercises to strengthen the muscles that are weak and retrain your muscles to align your posture. Breathing exercises are also helpful for chronic TMJ pain and postural correction. If you know that your posture isn’t the greatest, have you considered physical therapy to help this? For more information about our treatment for TMJ problems, call us at 616-516-4334 or submit your questions here and we will be in touch.
2. Optimal resting jaw position is relaxed face and jaw muscles, lips together, teeth apart, tongue resting on the roof of your mouth. If you are looking for something straight-forward and natural that can ease pain, the resting position of your face, jaw and tongue are wonderful places to start!
In this resting position the facial muscles should feel relaxed, breathing is through your nose and the teeth should be slightly apart. Quite often the tongue is not resting behind the front teeth, on the roof of the mouth. We invite our patients to pay closer attention to the resting position of the jaw and facial muscles and work to maintain the optimal jaw resting posture. If you need help with this, our physical therapists specialize in reducing muscle tension and restoring neck and jaw alignment and position. Call us at 616-516-4334 to learn more about our natural physical therapy treatment for TMJ pain or ask us a question here and we will be in touch!
3. The neck is part of jaw problems. Consider physical therapy to treat your neck. We give our patients gentle neck range of motion and strengthening exercise.
The neck, especially the upper neck, is typically contributing to your TMJ problem. One natural and easy thing we suggest for some of our patients is called chin tucks. In this exercise, while sitting, standing or lying down, gently create a double chin by gliding your chin back and gently lifting the crown of the head a bit upwards. When performing this we also recommend to our patients that they align their head on their ribcage and their ribcage on their pelvis. For some patients, we recommend holding the chin tuck and breathing for 2 or 3 breaths. Other patients do better if they very gently move in and out of this position. For some patients we work on jaw motion while coordinating neck motions. Because you are not our patient, we can’t say exactly if this is right for you, so our advice is not meant to treat you, but to give you ideas of things that has helped our patients. If you are looking for natural treatment for your TMJ pain, physical therapy is the ultimate natural care. Everything we do is natural, does not involve medications or surgery and optimizes your fascia, muscles and joints so you can decrease muscle tension and restore neck and jaw alignment and position. Most of our patients who come to us for TMJ problems seem to know that their neck is also a problem for them. If you are interested in receiving more information about our natural treatments for neck and TMJ problems, reach out to us at 616-516-4334 to talk to one of our team members or ask us a question here and we will be in touch!
4. Assess the stress in your life and make a plan for dealing with it in a way that creates less tension in your body.
The TM joint and the pelvic floor, both of our areas of specialty, react to life’s physical, emotional and mental stress. If you are experiencing high stress levels or simply high stress response in your life, you must develop a plan to mitigate how this stress will impact your pelvic floor and TM joint. Maybe yoga or meditation will help you. Possibly counseling? Sometimes walks in forests help. Communication with co-workers, family member and friends can be important to reducing your body’s stress response and to enhance relationships. Implementing enhanced time management strategies has helped some of our patients reduce their jaw clenching and chronic TMJ pain. Some of our patients are struggling to find joy, laughing and peace in their life. If this is your experience, work with a counselor and develop new skills to enjoy life again. Some patients have made a list of things that bring joy and facilitate relaxation and then intentionally set aside time to include these things in their life. Whatever you can do to either decrease the stress you are experiencing or to train your body to react to that stress differently is needed to naturally help your TMJ pain. In physical therapy, one of the natural treatments we provide for TMJ pain relief is heart rate variability training (HRV). HRV training can help shift your body away from sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight dominance and towards a more relaxed and calm state. We provide private one-on-one visits with your licensed physical therapist and if heart rate variability training might help your TMJ pain, we will teach you how to improve your Vagus Nerve tone to improve your heart rate variability. Patients tell us that this heart rate variability training is very calming and relaxing and eases their pain and anxiety. If you are interested in learning more about these types of natural treatments that we offer for TMJ pain, call us at 616-516-4334 to get your questions answered or ask us a question here and we will be in touch!
5. Optimize sleep! This is crucial for your body to restore and reset. Sleep is a natural remedy for all pain, including TMJ pain.
If you grind your teeth, you need to work with a specialist dentist who can help create a TMJ splint or night guard to help protect your jaw and teeth. When you sleep, we prefer that our patients keep their neck supported in a natural position so that the natural curve of the neck is supported. Many of our patients experience more jaw pain if they sleep on their side, smooshing their face and jaw, so watch your TMJ position when you sleep. Ideally you would sleep with your jaw in the resting position noted above and relaxed.
Set a bedtime and stick to it. I’m talking to you, night owls! The deep sleep we get that restores our body often occurs in the first few hours of sleep and if you stay up one or two hours past your bedtime, you may be missing the oppportunity to have deep sleep. If you can’t sleep because of your TMJ pain, you would benefit from physical therapy now. To discuss your needs, call us at 616-516-4334 or ask us a question here and we will be in touch!
6. Gentle exercise for the neck, face and jaw muscles can alleviate TMJ pain. I you are looking for what you can do naturally to help your pain, our PTs will provide you with a complete exercise program!
The exercises we give our patients in physical therapy provide a natural way to decrease TMJ tension and stiffness. We customize the exercises based on each person’s needs. While we can’t tell you exactly what you need to do, because you are not our patient, we can let you know that for our patients we often work on exercises that include gentle range of motion of the neck, open and closing the jaw, stretching the face muscles and relaxing the eye muscles. We also look for muscle imbalances and often find weakness of the shoulder blade muscles, the deep neck stabilizers, the diaphragm and core. By training these muscles, we take pressure off of the upper neck and jaw. If you are interested in receiving a customized exercise program for your chronic TMJ or neck pain, call us at 616-516-4334 to discuss your needs or ask us a question here and we will be in touch! We offer treatment in-person in Grand Rapids, Michigan or via remote consultation for those who qualify.
7. Gentle heat to the neck or jaw can help ease chronic TMJ pain. For acute (new) pain, sometimes we find that ice helps more than heat.
Applying the heat or ice to the neck, face and jaw can alleviate muscle tension and pain. We always advise to limit this to about ten minutes, so a person doesn’t over-use heat and cause inflammation or over-use ice and cause frost bite.
8. Avoid eating foods that create a large load on the jaw, such as biting into an apple or eating a huge subway sandwich.
You probably already figured out that certain foods cause you to have more TMJ pain. If you are looking to alleviate this pain, we advise temporarily avoiding these foods. Because chewing is a culprit for TMJ pain, we recommend our patients become cognizant of how they bite and chew food. If you are in the habit of only chewing on one side of your mouth, we recommend you equalize your chewing habits. In our pelvic patients, we find that not chewing food effectively can lead to constipation and gut issues; this is especially true with younger patients who go on to become adults with IBS and have a greater risk for developing TMJ disorders. Sometimes a tooth problem in the reason why you don’t chew equally, if this is the case, we advise getting your dentist to correct this issue. Chewing gum, biting hard candy and eating hard foods, like carrots, can worsen TMJ pain for some people. If you are frustrated with the inability to chew normal meals, our PT can improve your jaw’s ability to open, close and chew. To learn more about our in-person physical therapy or remote consultations, call 616-516-4334 or reach out to us here with your questions.
Physical therapy for jaw pain offers you gentle and natural treatments that get to the root of your muscle guarding, joint stiffness, postural problems, neck issues and limitations in your jaw function.
Our physical therapists here at Purple Mountain Physical Therapy specialize in treating TMJ disorders, neck pain, back pain and pelvic health issues related to bladder, bowel and intimacy. We hope this article gives you insights into natural things you can do to help your chronic TMJ pain. If you are tired of TMJ pain, limitations in your jaw opening, not being able to chew or eat the foods you enjoy, we are here to help you. Our natural physical therapy treatments for TMJ pain provide you a path forward. To speak with one of our knowledgable team members, call 616-516-4334 or reach out to us here and we will be in touch.
Peace,
Author| Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT is a physical therapist specializing in pelvic health and TMJ disorders. As founder of Purple Mountain Physical Therapy, she leads a team of physical therapist specializing in providing a higher level of service and treatment for difficult problems of the jaw, spine and pelvis. If you are looking for care that is whole body, personalized to you and gives you relief of pain and dysfunction, contact us today to chat. We provide care in-person in Grand Rapids or via remote consult for those who qualify.
All information shared on our website, these articles, Instagram and Facebook is for informational purposes only and is not meant to treat you or substitute for your medical advice. We recommend that you work with your physical therapist to learn what exercises and natural treatments you can do at home to best help your condition.
Check out these other articles we’ve written:
5 Tips To Ease Pelvic Pain that Won’t Go Away!
What Does TMJ Physical Therapy Help?
Physical Therapy for Neck Pain and Headaches
Sciatica Treatment in Grand Rapids
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References:
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