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Writer's pictureCasey Litzenberger

TMJ & Massage Therapy


Signs & symptoms of TMJ disorders may include:

Pain or tenderness of your jaw

Pain in one or both TM (temporomandibular) joints

Aching pain in or around y

our ear

Difficulty chewing or pain while chewing

Aching facial pain

Jaw locking, making it difficult to open or close your mouth

Massage therapy can help clients who experience TMJ pain. Today I will discuss ways massage therapy can those who experience jaw pain. The temporomandibular joint is the joint where the head and the lower jaw are connected. There are muscles that attach from the bone to the head, that enable the jaw to move up and down.

There are many different causes for this problem. Some of the factors believed to be in correlation with this include: stress, erosion of the shock-absorbing disc in between the bones, misaligned teeth, teeth grinding, and so much more.

Mouth massage, or intraoral massage as its more commonly called, is a treatment preformed by a registered massage therapist for clients with TMJ. It is completed by me, the registered massage therapist placing gloves on my hands and massing the muscles inside the clients mouth to relieve the pain created by TMJ dysfunction. For some people, this massage is quite painful while other don't experience additional discomfort from having this treatment done. Massage therapy can also be done outside your mouth as well that will help relieve the tension and pressure in your jaw. Massage therapy is a more preferable treatment over other methods is because pain relief an alignment correction can be temporary. These massage treatments are recommend for 30-45 minutes in length as there are other muscles of involvement that can be worked on. I can also show you a number of different exercises to try out too. There is a common belief that over time, massage treatments can drastically reduce incidents and severity of jaw pain.

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