Last week, while I was doing a presentation in New York City, I had three people in the group come up to me afterward and ask me how to self-treat for TMJ. If you have clicking where your back teeth meet, or if your jaw slips over to the side when you open your mouth all the way, you probably have already been told that you have TMJ.
The good news about this is that it is really simple to self-treat for this condition. You can see pictures that will demonstrate the self-treatment for TMJ. Here is a description of the treatment:
Use your three middle fingers and place them on the muscle that is located where you grip your back teeth together. You can look the muscle up on the internet, the name is masseter.
Grip your teeth, feel the muscle under your fingertips, and then press down and feel where the muscle is hurting — that’s the spasm that is causing the problem.
Apply pressure on one side, going as deep as you can tolerate and then hold it for 15-30 seconds. Then slowly let go of this pressure and apply pressure on the your other side. Again, hold the pressure for 15-30 seconds and then reverse the pressure again. Keep going back and forth, only applying pressure on one side at a time.
After doing this a few times, move your fingers and see if you can feel spasms in other parts of the muscle. If you do, treat them the same way, applying pressure to the spasms and then alternating back and forth.
At the end, press on both sides of your jaw at the same time and then slowly open your jaw all the way. Do this stretch a few times to lengthen the muscle fibers.
Have a great day,
Julie