TMJ Therapy – Weatherford, TX
Relieve Your Chronic Jaw Pain
Good oral health means protecting more than just your teeth and gums. Your jaw is an important part of your mouth’s function overall, so an issue with your TMJ (the small joints that connect the lower jaw to your head) can lead to a lot of chronic pain and dental damage. At Cosmetic & Family Dentistry, we can use TMJ treatment in Weatherford to help you treat and avoid the debilitating symptoms of jaw dysfunction. Contact our office today if you’re suffering from chronic head, neck, jaw, or shoulder pain.
Symptoms of a TMJ Disorder
There are many different possible reasons for a TMJ disorder to develop – various kinds of arthritis, jaw injury, grinding or clenching or the teeth, diseased connective tissue – but oftentimes the underlying cause isn’t clear. Thus, you should be aware of the different signs and symptoms that can point to problems with your TMJ. This might include:
- Pain or tenderness in your jaw
- Recurring headaches
- Aching pain in the face, neck or shoulder
- Tinnitus (ringing in your ear)
- Difficulty chewing
- Jaw joints that become locked and make it hard to open or close your mouth
- A clicking sound or grating sensation whenever you chew
Not all these symptoms need to be present in order to indicate a TMJ disorder; in general, you should seek treatment for any kind of persistent pain or if you suffer from limited jaw mobility.
Intraoral Appliance Therapy
There’s often no need for surgery to treat a TMJ disorder; in many cases, an intraoral appliance (which resembles a mouthguard you might wear for sports) can be used to address the underlying issue and relieve your jaw pain in Weatherford. For example, if you grind or clench your teeth at night, an appliance can be used to stop this from happening; not only will this lead to less pain, but it will also protect your teeth from being worn down. In other cases, we can use an intraoral appliance to correct a slight misalignment in your joint, repositioning the jaw to reduce strain on your TMJ.
Technology for Treating TMJ Disorders
Dr. Deborah Romack, Dr. Garrett Mulkey, and Dr. Ashley Decker take advantage of the latest dental technologies to provide you with the best possible care. When diagnosing a TMJ disorder, we use a JVA (joint vibration analysis) device as a non-invasive method of examining your jaw joints. The device can detect different kinds of sound vibrations, and the wave signatures of each sound are recorded on our computer. Vibrations can tell us a lot about the state of your TMJ; for example, the joint’s disc might have become displaced, perforated, or torn.