Disclaimer:
Any medical/health information in this course is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional advice. Accordingly, before taking any actions based on such information, I encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. The use or reliance of any information contained in this course is solely at your own risk.
Whenever I seek care for a problem, I’m usually wondering - “Is this just me? Am I the only one who deals with this issue? Are other people here for the same reasons?”
Or, when I see a specific provider, I can’t help but think, “How often do they treat my problem? Do they know my diagnosis and how to help?”
If you’re thinking about seeing a jaw specialist for your problem, it can be helpful to know what they treat on a day-to-day basis.
So, what do jaw specialist PTs see in their office every day?
Here’s a quick summary:
People generally come to us because of jaw pain, a limitation in mouth opening, clicking or popping in the joint, neck pain, headaches, or ear symptoms.
This is consistent with a research study that looked at the patients who visited a temporomandibular disorder (TMD) specialist physical therapist in Georgia.
According to his study, here are the most common reasons people are seeking care from a TMD specialist:
The vast majority (94%), of his patients had symptoms with their jaw. These included:
Jaw pain (65%)
Limited mouth opening (62%)
Jaw popping (47%)
Jaw locking (24%)
No surprises here; most people going to a jaw specialist have problems with their jaw!
The second most common group of symptoms were neck symptoms (69%). Of those with neck pain, almost three-fourths had headaches that came along with their neck pain.
Some other, less common symptoms included:
Teeth clenching or grinding (67%)
Headache (64%)
Ear symptoms (60%)
Low back pain (31%)
Dizziness (22%)
Migraine (19%)
As a clinician helping people with jaw problems every day, I took a few other interesting notes from Steve’s study. Here are my takeaways:
Most people have more than one problem. We don’t always know which came first - the chicken, or the egg? The muscle problem, or the joint problem? It usually doesn’t matter. What we do want, however, is to have a thorough understanding of what's going on so that we know how to treat it, and we don’t miss anything important.
Most people had an “insidious onset,” to their symptoms, which means we don’t know why it started. Often, people think that jaw pain starts because of getting hit in the jaw, such as in a motor vehicle accident or getting punched in the face. However, almost three-fourths of patients seeking care in Kraus’s study didn’t have an obvious cause to their symptoms.
Most people had pain for a long time by the time they got to Kraus for help. Almost three-fourths had been dealing with pain for more than three months, and the average length of time they’d been dealing with symptoms was 4.4 YEARS.
So, in summary, people seek out care from a PT who specializes in TMD because they are experiencing jaw pain, a limitation in mouth opening, clicking or popping in the joint, neck pain, headaches, or ear symptoms. Most of them have had pain for a long time, and usually, the problem started without a known cause.
Is this you? If so, you might benefit from an evaluation to understand whether specialist PT can help.
We see these symptoms every day in our office, and encourage you to reach out for a free consult to talk about whether an evaluation is the right fit for you.
Visit the “Contact” page for the next step; we look forward to hearing your story!
Cheers,
Dr. Rebecca Salstrand, PT, DPT
Reference:
Kraus SL. Characteristics of 511 patients with temporomandibular disorders referred for physical therapy. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol. 2014 Oct;118(4):432-9. doi: 10.1016/j.oooo.2014.06.005. Epub 2014 Jul 2. PMID: 25240990.