TMJ Diagnosis - How Can I Diagnose TMJ

If you or someone you know has been suffering from prolonged or repeated jaw pain, you may need a TMJ diagnosis. TMJ disorder is a condition affecting the jaw joint that helps you talk, eat, and more. For a number of reasons, the joint can become inflamed which can lead to pain and other unpleasant effects. Here are some things to consider if you think your condition may warrant a TMJ diagnosis.

Common Symptoms

Because the condition affects the jaw, some of the main symptoms involve that part of your face. For example, you might have tenderness around your jaw. It might hurt if you touch the side of your face near your jaw bone. That pain might even have spread down into your neck and shoulders. In some cases, TMJ back pain can be present in patients.

As the condition worsens, you might find that biting or chewing is painful. That’s because the joint has to move for both of those actions and the movement is going to send pain signals through the trigeminal nerve into the brain. You might also experience stiffness or locking of the joint as the pain progresses.

Ear-Related Symptoms Sometimes Overlooked

Sometime the symptoms you’ll experience won’t be directly connected to your jaw which can lead to a non TMJ diagnosis by some physicians. However, research is discovering that a large number of complaints related to the ear, for instance, can be traced back to problems with the jaw.

The muscles in the ear and in the jaw are connected to the same nerve so when one becomes tense with pain so do the others. The result can be chronic ear pain misdiagnosed as an ear infection or even persistent TMJ tinnitus.

Other Frequent Symptoms

While a TMJ diagnosis might be made based on jaw joint pain alone, there are sometimes other symptoms that may give away your condition. When you open your mouth, you might hear or feel clicking, popping, or grating.

Because of the effects on the ear, TMJ diagnosis might also include repeated episodes of dizziness that can be severe enough to lead to nausea and/or vomiting. That’s because the bone inside the ear is responsible for controlling our equilibrium and when that gets thrown off balance it stimulates our gag reflex and makes us feel sick to our stomachs.

TMJ headaches and body pains can also be a result of the condition.

Getting Your TMJ Diagnosis

If you want to get a reliable and accurate diagnosis for your condition, you’ll need to consult someone knowledgeable about TMJ orthodontics. For many physicians and dentists, TMJ is still fairly new territory. They may end up treating your symptoms instead of diagnosing their root cause. That won’t solve the problem.

Make sure you seek the help of a professional if you have any of the above symptoms. This condition won’t fix itself nor will it stop getting worse without treatment.