Does your jaw hurt? Is it clicking when you are eating? Do you have a hard time when you are opening it? Well, many people have some of these problems. It is hard to be precise with this kind of problems. After a person comes to a certain age, his health and body are starting to decline, and it becomes susceptible to inflammation and pain.
Also, some problems can occur, no matter how old you are. It can happen if you have a history of grinding your teeth, clenching them, eating only food that requires you to chew it more than usual, injuries, illness, etc. We are going to present you with some sources of jaw ache that could potentially be the source in your case.
Source: Buoy Health
Contents
Temporomandibular Diseases (TMD)
TMD is a set of disorders that can your jaw hurt, they are targeting your neck area, jaw, and face. TMJ is the connection between the rest of your skull and your lower jaw and allows it to move. Inflicting any kind of damage to TMJ can cause TMD. TMD`s have certain symptoms that warn you. Among those are, headaches, jaw pain, teeth pain, jaw muscle spasms, neck aches, etc. What can TMD causes:
Bruxism (Teeth Grinding)
You can see that you have the case of bruxism when your teeth are flat on top and very shortened. Maybe you didn`t know, but teeth grinding is occurring mostly during the sleep. You can feel that if you have a sore jaw or headache when you are waking up.
In order to solve this problem, you can ask your dentist to make you a mouth guards, which will prevent you from grinding them in your sleep. The other solution can be you visiting the psychologist who can prescribe you a medication or an exercise that can help you in reducing the level of stress.
Source: Consumer Guide to Dentistry
Malocclusion (Improper Biting)
Symptoms that are showing that you have malocclusion, are pain or difficulty when you are speaking or chewing your food. What can lead you to this problem? Well, it can come from an injury, thumb-sucking, or some heredity issue.
You should go to your dentist, who will give you a proper diagnose. He can create crowns or a bridge to stop the drift. Also, it can help you by making you braces, doing a surgery, extracting certain teeth, or more rarely, fixing the shape of your jaw.
Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS)
Myofascial pain a chronic one, and it comes from the muscles or the sheaths that are surrounding the muscle. It is centered in the muscles of the jaw. The symptoms are restricted jaw function, facial pain, and clicking and other noise when a person is using its jaw.
In order to solve this problem, you should go to a dentist that is specialized in ear or TMD. It will be treated with massages, correcting posture, and medications. Some researches proved that acupuncture is something that can really help in this case. However, sometimes surgery is the only cure.
Non-TMD-Related Pains
Your jaw pain can be caused by some other things that are no TMD related. Usually, they are more serious than in TMD cases. If you are certain that you don`t have problems with your TMJ, you should look for some other symptoms.
Source: DocShop.com
Tetanus
Due to medicine’s high standards, tetanus is very rare in most of the counties in the world. Tetanus makes swallowing and simple opening of jaws very painful. It comes into the body by inserting through an open wound. If this happens, you should call your doctor or an ambulance right away.
Jaw Cancer
The forming of cancerous cells usually begins in lower or the upper jaw, and then spreads to the whole body. You should look for pain in the jaw, lumps, persistent sores, and numbness. You can get jaw cancer through chewing tobacco, smoking, or inherit it. You should see an oral oncologist, and take some diagnostical tests. If it is exposed early, it can be cured successfully.
Broken Jaw
It is pretty clear how you can get a broken jaw. The symptoms are bleeding in your mouth, pain while moving your jaws and trouble with your breathing. If this happens, you should go to the emergency room, or call an ambulance.
Source: vaalweekblad
Heart Attack
It is less known that a jaw ache can be a symptom for a heart attack. When you have pain in the left section of your lower jaw, it can be a sign of a heart attack. This is a very serious thing, you should call an ambulance immediately.
Source: nextavenue.org
