WHAT IS TMJ AND OROFACIAL PAIN?
Orofacial /Craniofacial pain is a field of dentistry that deals with the diagnosis and care of non-dental pain that presents in the head, face or neck, or inside your mouth. These types of disorders all have unique causes and treatments. People with persistent pain in the form of headaches or migraines, pain in their teeth, mouth, face, neck, shoulder, and all the way down to their feet often turn to their dentist for any suspicious toothaches. Dental pain is a type of orofacial pain and can often be treated by dental procedures. But orofacial pain can also be caused by non-dental pain disorders like TMDs that resemble pain in your teeth, mouth or face
CAUSES
Pain in your teeth, face and head may actually originate from other surprising causes like rhinosinusistis, mouth breathing, sleep disorders, OSA, tongue ties, clenching, and TMJ disorders. It also affects the muscles used to chew, swallow and talk, as well as other associated structures. Patients suffering from TMJ usually have fatigued & spasming facial muscles resulting from trauma, stress, clenching or the inability to find a proper bite, incorrect swallowing and breathing dysfunction. To enable you to chew and close your mouth properly, your jaw muscles may be working overtime to try and keep your head posture in balance. When these muscles become fatigued it can send pain down your neck and into your shoulders and back. The pain can even radiate down your arms in severe cases
TYPES OF PAIN
Orofacial pain refers to the non-dental pain that presents in the head, face or neck, or inside your mouth. The face is made up of a combination of fascia, muscles, nerves, bones and cartilage. Dysfunction in these structures presents itself in the form of headaches or migraines and pain, burning or tingling sensations in their teeth, mouth, face, neck and shoulder.
TMD PAIN: ARTICULAR PAIN
This means a dislocated jaw or displaced disk, (cushion of cartilage between the head of the jaw bone and the skull), or injury to the condyle (the rounded end of the jaw bone that articulates with the temporal skull bone). Disc displacement can be of 2 types, with reduction and without reduction.
TMD PAIN: DEGENERATIVE JOINT DISEASE
This includes osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis in the jaw joint.
Another facial pain disorder is trigeminal neuralgia (TN). This is where brief, sharp, shooting, electrical and severe pain can be triggered by actions that don’t normally hurt. For example, lightly touching your face, brushing your teeth, talking, chewing or shaving can all trigger pain in trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Many times, untrained professionals may misdiagnose this pain for a TMD.