Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Dysfunction may be caused by a direct injury to the jaw, dental work, chewing to one side, sleeping on your side with your mouth open, or resting your chin in your hand. It can be extremely painful, or you may merely experience an audible clicking or popping. Other symptoms associated with TMJ are headaches, jaw aches, neck pain, difficulty eating/chewing, and difficulty opening and closing your mouth.
To alleviate pain or discomfort, try these exercises:
Place your closed fist directly under the jaw joint. Press the jaw into your fist, hold the pressure for a count of 10, release, and go to the opposite side. Repeat 10 times.
Place three fingers at each jaw, below the joint, and apply light pressure evenly. Slowly open the jaw and do not allow any noise. If there is clicking or popping, you may have tension in the jaw, release the pressure and begin again. Repeat 20 times.
Curl your tongue upward, and place the tip as far back in the roof of your mouth as you can. Now hold in place while opening and closing your mouth. Repeat 20 times.
If these therapies do not help and your pain persists, a few modalities offered by the Advanced Wellness Center that may help alleviate your pain or discomfort are: chiropractic care, cranial adjusting, acupuncture, massage, ice and exercise to balance the muscles of the jaw.
Healing Tip of the Week
If you have a noisy or painful jaw, you should not chew gum. We tend to chew on one side and can further misalign the jaw and imbalance the muscles causing more problems.
A study conducted in 1920 by Dr. Winsor, MD, proved it does. To summarize the quotes from the research below, Winsor came to realize that when the spine is shifted, the curves in the spine that compensate the changes begin to affect the organs close to them.
How could this be? Passing out of each spinal level are sympathetic nerves. These nerves are in control of adapting to threats and keeping the body alive. Dr. Winsor’s research found that the firing of these nerves increased (in reaction to the spine out of place) until the amount of tone to the organ was so high, it became exhausted, gave way and became diseased. Is this the cause of all disease? The answer is “no.” There are many other factors to take into consideration. But we can hypothesize that the spine and nervous system hold the key to a large part of health and well being.
When we look at the function of the human body, we see that all function is controlled by the brain, spinal cord and nerves. They are the electrical wires, and the spine could be viewed as somewhat of a circuit breaker. When it becomes imbalanced, some areas get too much electricity; some too little.
This change in nerve firing is not from the actual bone “pinching” on the nerve, but from the adaptation of the nervous system to compensate for these changes in spinal/muscle position.
To care for the spine holistically, the practitioner applies proper balance to the spine through specific motion. In the new school of chiropractic, sports therapies, rehabilitation, breathing exercises and muscle manipulation are also employed to keep the spine balanced and the nervous system firing.
Winsor, H. Sympathetic segmental disturbances — II. The evidences of the association, in dissected cadavers, of visceral disease with vertebral deformities of the same sympathetic segments, The Medical Times, November 1921, pp. 267-271
“Therefore, in 50 cadavers with disease in 139 organs, there was found curve of the vertebrae, belonging to the same sympathetic segments as the diseased organs 128 times, leaving an apparent discrepancy of 10, in which the vertebrae in curve belonged to an adjacent segment to that which should supply the diseased organs with sympathetic filaments.
The disease appears to precede old age and to cause it. The spine becomes stiff first and old age follows. Therefore, we may say a man is as old as his spine, the arteries becoming hardened later from constant vaso-motor spasm, following sympathetic irritation.”
“New results from the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial showed that eating a low-fat diet for eight years did not prevent heart disease, breast cancer or colon cancer; and didn’t do much for weight loss, either,” according to an article from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), December 2006.
The truth is, we need some fat. But, we need to choose the right types of fat. In fact, eating good fats, such as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, might actually lower the risk for certain diseases!
It’s still important to limit the amount of cholesterol in your diet. However, the average person makes 75-percent of blood cholesterol in the liver, while only 25-percent is derived from food. So, the main problem is in the blood cholesterol level, not so much dietary cholesterol. High blood cholesterol levels greatly increase the risk of heart disease.
What is the biggest influence on the blood cholesterol level? According to the HSPH, it’s the mix of good fats and bad fats in the diet.
Good fats, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, actually lower your LDL (bad cholesterol) and increase your HDL (good cholesterol). Some monounsaturated fats are: olives, olive oil, canola oil, cashews, almonds and other nuts, and avocados. Some polyunsaturated fats include corn, safflower and cottonseed oil, as well as fish. The fats you definitely want to limit are the saturated fats, and the ones to completely eliminate from your diet are the trans fats. Manufacturers are now required to list the amount of trans fat in their products, so check out the label before you buy. Here are some tips from the HSPH for lowering your trans fat intake:
Choose liquid vegetable oils or a soft tub margarine that contains little or no trans fat.
Reduce intake of commercially prepared baked goods, snack foods, and processed foods, including fast foods.
To avoid trans fat in restaurants, avoid deep fried foods, because many restaurants still fry with partially hydrogenated oils.
Healing Tip of the Week
When foods containing partially hydrogenated oils can’t be avoided, choose products that list the partially hydrogenated oils near the end of the ingredient list.
