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The Impact of TMJ on Facial Health
by Dylan Hao |
Between 5-12% of the global adult population experiences TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorders.
There are multiple types of TMJ disorders, or TMDs, but they all have some symptoms in common, such as jaw pain, headaches, and neck pain.
Left untreated, TMJ conditions can also affect a person’s facial appearance. Changes such as asymmetrical face height or bulging jaw muscles are warning signs that your TMJ is affecting your face’s health.
In this blog, we’ll explain how the TMJ impacts the face, how to prevent the damage from worsening, and what to do if you notice TMJ face changes.
What is the TMJ?
You’ve heard of TMJ pain, but what is it exactly?
TMDs are a collection of over 30 conditions that affect the temporomandibular joint. We have two of these joints, one on either side of the jaw. Push below the front of your ears, and you’ll feel them.
TMD refers to the disorders, while TMJ describes the actual joint. When your TMJ causes pain, or movement of the jaw is disrupted for long periods, you have a TMD.
Three classes of TMDs categorize the 30+ types of disorders:
- Joint disorders (including disc problems)
- Masticatory muscle disorders (your chewing muscles)
- TMDs that cause headaches
Within each class of disorders lies a variety of more specific conditions. Most TMDs are temporary, lasting a few days or weeks and going away without extra treatment. But when they’re chronic, they’re hard to ignore, and you’ll need to determine the cause of your pain to find the proper treatment.
What Causes TMDs?
Studies show that 11-12 million adults in America have had TMJ pain. These disorders are most common in women aged 35-44 but can happen to anyone.
When your TMJ pain is secondary to an injury to the jaw or facial muscles, it’s easier to determine the cause. But for most people, pinpointing the reason for their pain is not so straightforward.
Your TMJ pain may have shown up overnight without any apparent cause, or the symptoms could have been mild at first and slowly worsened. That’s perfectly normal, as in many TMD cases, there’s no obvious trigger. Instead, TMJ disorders stem from a mixture of genetic factors, stress, and psychological makeup.
Diagnosing TMDs
Because the symptoms of a TMD can be generalized, your doctor or dentist would perform various tests to rule out other conditions before a TMD diagnosis is made official.
The journey through testing for a TMD starts with a clinical exam. During this assessment, your healthcare provider checks for:
- A history of jaw pain
- Clicking or popping with jaw movement
- Jaw tenderness
- Range-of-motion exercises
They might also recommend imaging tests, such as X-rays or CT scans, to check for problems with soft tissue, teeth, or bone under the surface.
What Are the Symptoms and Side Effects of a TMJ Disorder?
Not all these disorders look alike; some have more subtle indicators that can also be signs of other conditions. This list includes some of the most common symptoms of a TMD:
- Jaw pain or tenderness
- Pain in one or both of the temporomandibular joints
- Difficulty chewing or pain triggered by chewing
- Throbbing earaches
- Dull or sharp facial pain
- Joint locking/jaw dysfunction (difficulty opening or closing the mouth)
- Clicking or popping of the jaw joint with jaw movement
- Headaches or migraines
- Tinnitus (ear ringing)
Depending on the severity of your temporomandibular joint dysfunction, the symptoms may be mild and infrequent, constant and severe, or somewhere in between. Certain behaviors, such as chewing gum, pens, and other hard objects, trigger and worsen the symptoms.
An unofficial way to screen for TMJ disorders is the “three-finger test.” This method lets you know if you’re on the right track with your TMD diagnosis, so don’t be surprised if your doctor performs it on you. This test involves the person trying to vertically fit three fingers between their front upper and lower teeth. If this isn’t possible without pain, or if this movement causes spasms, it’s a strong indicator of trismus, a symptom of a TMD. (The Science Behind Jaw Spasms: Causes and Remedies)
TMDs that don’t go away on their own within a couple of weeks should be addressed by a TMJ specialist. Without care, the symptoms can become extremely painful and lead to other side effects, like TMJ face.
How Can My TMJ Change My Face Shape?
Yes, letting your TMJ symptoms go on for too long can affect your face’s appearance! How is this possible?
There are three main ways TMDs work under the surface, gradually adjusting aspects of your jaw or spine until the results are visible.
Causes of TMJ Face
When pain is on one side of the mouth, it’s common for you to chew on the other side. This happens when a tooth has a cavity or other dental issues, but it goes away quickly once the problem is treated.
However, with chronic TMDs, the discomfort can last so long that the uneven chewing wears away at the tooth enamel. This erosion reduces the jaw’s height, causing it to appear slanted when you close your mouth.
TMJ face can also happen when the jaw joint is off balance. Not only does this displacement lead to substantial pain, but it can also cause the joint to begin tilting, leading to a slanted look.
Beyond the joint, the mandible (jawbone) also changes when TMDs continue for extended periods. Similar to how osteoporosis shortens the spine, TMDs wear away at the condyle, the rounded part of the jawbone that connects to the skull. This condition is called condylar resorption. It causes the jawbone to shrink and pull back, moving the ligaments and shifting the shape of the face.
Facial Changes From TMJ and Bruxism
Bruxism, also known as teeth grinding, can damage the TMJ, and the stress of TMJ pain can lead to grinding in your sleep. While researchers are still unclear if TMDs lead to bruxism or vice versa, the effects on the jaw muscles are apparent.
With a TMD and bruxism, the jaw muscles work extra hard to compensate for joint displacement. Imagine going to the gym and working one set of muscles every day. Over time, the muscles will become sore, but they’ll also begin to bulge. With grinding, this bulging happens because the muscles are swollen, causing your face to look unbalanced.
How Can I Prevent TMJ Face?
Yikes! Between the pain of a TMJ disorder and the potential changes to your face, you want to know how to prevent this problem stat, and we get it!
Prevention begins at home with how you care for your oral health. Your dental hygiene can halt the spread of bacteria that lead to tooth decay, reducing the enamel erosion problem. Regular cleanings and exams are used to monitor the progression of jawbone deterioration or shifting teeth to help you control the causes of TMJ face.
From there, your dentist or doctor may recommend exercises and stretches to minimize strain on the joint and jaw muscles. For mild cases of TMJ disorders, custom-made night guards, like those we offer at JS Dental Lab, are a wise first line of defense against grinding and tooth enamel erosion. This bite stabilizer covers the upper or lower teeth and prevents the arches from contacting each other when you’re asleep, effectively prohibiting grinding damage.
However, more severe TMJ cases may require a repositioning splint. This orthotic device is worn throughout the day (except when eating) to treat a shifted jaw. Consistent use of the splint moves the jaw into optimal alignment.
Managing the swelling and discomfort with cold packs and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or Ibuprofen may also prevent overuse of the muscles.
Can I Reverse Facial Damage From a Long-Term TMD?
Has your long-term TMD already affected your facial health?
This asymmetry doesn’t have to be forever. With the proper treatment and early intervention, you may be able to return to a pre-TMD appearance without surgery.
Early Intervention for TMD-Related Facial Changes
Wearing a custom-made occlusal splint when sleeping is a non-invasive way to prevent grinding and overused muscles from changing your jaw shape.
These night guards reduce jaw muscle wear, allowing them to rest and recover. Night guards also prevent tooth enamel contact, stopping enamel wear and tear. Note that over-the-counter mouth guards are not the same thing. These orthodontic appliances aren’t designed for your unique teeth shape and can worsen your TMD symptoms.
When your jaw muscles are swollen and opening your mouth is painful, physical therapy exercises and stretches are the next steps. Your therapist will teach you how to strengthen your jaw muscles without increasing pain and how to move your mouth to prevent triggering your TMD symptoms.
These two strategies take time, but they effectively block TMD symptoms from changing your facial appearance. In the meantime, consider using stress management in your daily life. Relaxation techniques, like yoga or meditation, exercise, and biofeedback, can reduce jaw clenching and teeth grinding. Natural and prescription muscle relaxants also achieve this result.
Since chewing triggers many TMD symptoms, it’s common for a TMD sufferer to switch to chewing on one side of the face. But changing your diet to soft foods and avoiding chewy and hard foods can also give your joints and muscles a chance to rest and heal.
Dental and Medical Treatment for TMJ Face
Long-term harm from TMDs can impact your smile. It may not sound like a big deal, but studies show that smiles significantly affect your well-being.
Misaligned bites (malocclusion) are dangerous to your oral health, leading to dental issues like cavities and gum disease. Eventually, these misalignments cause:
- Headaches
- Chewing difficulty
- Speech issues
- Changes in facial shape
Maloccluded teeth have spaces between them where food particles are trapped — the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, plaque, and tartar.
Changes in your smile can also wreak havoc on your mental health. When you aren’t confident about your teeth, you may begin hiding your smile, leading to self-esteem issues that eventually cause social isolation.
Dental Restorations for TMD Damage
How early you catch on to the symptoms of TMD and watch for these facial changes determines the type of treatment possible. Dental restorations like these can hide or fix the damage for many of the causes of TMJ face:
- Dental crowns are cemented over a damaged tooth or implanted in the jawbone to replace a missing tooth.
- Porcelain veneers are wafer-thin shells bonded to the front surface of a tooth to hide flaws like chips or discoloration.
- Full or partial dentures can replace missing teeth or arches of teeth.
More severe facial shape changes may require a full mouth reconstruction, including dental restorations like crowns, veneers, and implants. This overhaul of your smile restores the appearance of your teeth and gums and brings back full functionality and optimal bite alignment.
A mildly invasive surgery called an arthrocentesis, or a TMJ washout, is sometimes suggested. This procedure focuses on cleaning out debris from the TMJ, which improves pain and helps you open your jaw without discomfort.
When significant bone structure problems have caused asymmetrical facial changes, your doctor may recommend visiting a maxillofacial surgeon for orthognathic surgery to realign the jaw and correct the overall facial appearance.
So, no matter how substantially your TMJ symptoms have shifted your face’s appearance, there may be a treatment option that works for you. Talk to your dentist to determine if a dentistry solution can correct your concerns, or if a more invasive procedure is best.
Conclusion
Symptoms of jaw clicking and pain when you move your mouth could be warnings of a TMJ issue. The sooner you pay attention, the earlier you can benefit from nonsurgical treatments and prevent your TMJs from impacting your facial health.
Begin with a visit to our JS Dental Lab website to see how a custom-fit night guard can help you minimize your symptoms and keep your symmetrical face and smile just as beautiful or handsome as they already are!
