Hi Everyone! I'm Priya Mistry, the TMJ doc and today i'm going to show you guys how to release
the lateral pterygoid muscle. The lateral pterygoid muscle is typically a key player in clenching and
bruxing activity and when this muscle becomes dysfunctional, it can cause a lot A LOT of pain!
It can cause pain behind the eye, pain into the ear, jaw pain, headaches, even specific tooth pain
so much so that people think they have an infected tooth! So this muscle is little - it's about the size
of the end of my pinky here - but it is FIERCE and I call it "the Troublemaker" but I've heard it called
"the Terrible", which I love because it's a playoff of "pterygoid", but i did not come up with that one
myself unfortunately! So for those of you who don't know me i'm a General Dentist with a practice in
beautiful Portland, Oregon where we are dedicated to taking care of patients with TMJ disorders!
i'm fortunate enough to be working with my mentor, Dr. Arthur L. Parker, here. Please be sure to check
out my Instagram as well! I post there quite frequently and there's a lot of tips, tidbits, fun
information, fun facts for us TMJD geeks! So let's get back to the release! The lateral pterygoid
muscle stretches from the sphenoid bone in our skull to the disc within the joint as well as the
condyle, which is the bony knob that our mandible terminates on. The job of the lateral pterygoid
is to depress the mandible, to protrude the mandible, and to help with side to side movement.
This muscle is quite difficult to reach, so I'll do my best to show you how to reach
and release it on yourself at home. If you're doing the left side, use your right
hand and vice versa. You'll use your pinky finger - preferably gloved because, well Covid.
What you're going to do is you're going to take your finger, and you're actually going to turn it
so that the nail faces your teeth and you're going to get your finger up as far back past the upper
last molar; as far back and as far up as you can. It's probably going to be pretty tight in
there and it's going to feel hard or knotted or like bone, and it's probably going to be pretty
tender.. that's kind of how you know you're in the right area, because this muscle - when it's angry -
again, it's fierce! When you're back there, the pad of your finger will encounter bone! This is part of
the mandible; that's the inside part of this ramus right here. So that's normal if you contact bone.
Once you reach the spot, you're basically going to apply pressure with your finger for 10
seconds at a time. This is basically a myofascial release. And then you can change the angulation or
get deeper in there after each 10 second span. You can change the angulation to
access more of that muscle. As you do it, you may feel it opening up back there a little bit more;
and each time 10 seconds of pressure. Try not to do too much - you'll kind of know when you've hit
that sweet spot where it's just super painful versus you're actually getting a good release.
Each time you change the angulation apply pressure for another 10 seconds and you can do that a few
times. So maybe three, four different spots back there and then take your finger out. You can
do this one to two times a day. You don't want to overdo it; that muscle is probably already
mad for most of us! I know it is for me! So again, this pressure when you're back there, it may hurt
but this signals to your body to bring fresh blood flow which brings fresh oxygen to that muscle and
it also promotes lymphatic drainage. So any kinases, lactic acid, stuff that's built up in there that we
don't want.. it's promoting all of that to drain out of there. So there is a purpose behind this!
It is a muscle release, but it also brings fresh blood flow and promotes lymphatic drainage. Let
me go ahead and demonstrate on myself. I'm about to look really cool with my pink gloves and voila!
Here we go! You're going to take your pinky, you're going to turn so that the
nail - this part here - is facing your teeth and the pad of your finger is facing this way.
You're going to go as far back and up as you can and apply pressure for 10 seconds.
Change the angulation. Do it a few more times. As you start to feel it open up a little bit more
I'm not going to do a full 10 seconds so you guys don't have to stare at me that long,
but i'll i'll do enough to give you guys the gist okay. One last thing before you actually go
in your mouth. Once you go in, open big. Then to access the spot, close down about halfway or more and
that opens up that cheek area back there. So watch, I'll open big to get my finger in
and then I'll close a little more than halfway actually to really allow my finger access, okay?
okay so I'm right back here.
All right guys, so I hope that was helpful. It's hard to demonstrate that, but I did my best. So
that's really all I've got for you guys today. If you like what you heard, if you learned something
new - Subscribe, "Like" my channel, do all the things!And remember - you can never have TMI about TMJ!