♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Howdy, folks! I'm Bob Shrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today,
we're going to be talk about the best TMJ self treatment
to stop pain fast.
- That's right, Bob.
- TMJ, what is that?
- Temporomandibular joint.
Which, by the way, everyone.
Well, I think 99.9% of everyone
has two temporal mandibular joints.
They're the joint that makes your jaw open and close
as it should.
But we're actually talking about tempular,
temporomandibular disorder, but everyone calls it TMJ.
Not everyone, but most people do.
- I thought it was the mouth joint.
(laughing)
All right, let's go to work, Brad.
- Okay.
So just a few simple facts
about the temporomandibular joint.
First of all, you know, the temporal area is, you know,
your temple, right up in here and the muscle there goes down
and connects to the mandible and that helps close the jaw.
I'm not gonna get very technical here.
The mandible is the jaw itself.
- [Bob] Well,
you're talking about this muscle right here, right?
- [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] So you can actually, when you chew,
you can feel it moving.
- Exactly. And of course there's the masseter,
that's a big muscle right here. You ever see a horse?
They've got humongous masseter muscles. It's amazing.
And we do, too.
They say it's one of the strongest muscles in the body.
- Gotcha.
- Compared to its size, relative to its size.
And you can think of it all you,
when you're eating and chewing.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] It's a lot of workout.
- [Bob] And talking.
- [Brad] Yeah, exactly.
Now the joint that creates the pain is right here.
If you feel right in front of your ear, maybe you can,
can you show on that side of your head?
It's right in front of that ear hole, if you will.
- Right there,
- [Brad] Put your finger there, open and close your jaw.
- I'm just giving everybody the finger.
There we go, right there.
Why, Bob? Why? Open and close your jaw.
You feel, and you can feel that bone.
- That bump?
- Pass right there.
Now the problem with this joint is it can be very painful.
If that joint is not functioning properly.
Let's go through the--
- Also the muscles around it can get tense
- Yeah, when they get tight,
the joint doesn't want to.
- Work when it's shut.
- Exactly. Exactly right. So let's look at this.
How many people have joint pain from this causes problems?
6% of females, 3% of males.
- That's a lot of people.
- Yeah, it's a problem. There's some good news though.
Coming up here.
As far as the symptoms, pain often comes with chewing.
Oftentimes when you yawn, open your mouth up wide,
it can lock open. That's not fun.
And it's painful.
- Some people get it when they've been at the dentist
for quite a while.
They had their mouth open too long.
- You ever had the thing they stick in your mouth?
You can't close it as they do their work. It's not.
Yeah. So if you've got this, it's really not fun.
Popping and clicking is oftentimes associated with this.
However,
do not get excited if your jaw pops and clicks
and there's no symptoms or pain associated with it.
As a matter of fact, the one gentlemen I was looking at,
he was a doctor in this field.
And one of his relatives is concerned
because he wanted surgery on his jaw. Cause it kept popping.
- It clicks.
- Yeah. And he said,
"Do not worry about it. If it's not painful,
no symptoms, it's going to be okay."
So you can relax. If those, if that's your situation.
The other good news is approximately, now this various,
roughly 50% of the people that have joint pain,
TMJ, that it resolves by itself over time.
- That would be half.
- There you go. So that's good.
And, worst case scenario, if you do need surgery,
they actually do a partial replacements
or full replacements. And the success rate is very good.
- I've never known anybody that had surgery on the jaw.
Have you?
- No, I do.
I have known someone, she had TMJ surgery, but it was,
you know, 25 years ago.
And it turned out well.
- Good.
- I don't know if it was a complete,
you know, what the, what the procedure was,
but I know, it turned out very good.
So other things you can do if you're having TMJ pain.
And it's not stopping you from doing anything.
It's just being an irritant.
Some simple things you can do is simply
learn to relax these muscles.
- Right.
- Cause a lot of times
when people get tense and this happens with me,
if I'm tense, for some reason,
my temporalis muscles, they tighten up.
So does my jaw. And it's just natural.
- You get that throbbing vein.
- Exactly. Exactly.
So learn to relax. I need to practice that.
Think about breathing and as you breathe and exhale,
think about those muscles,
turning into soft, soft butter on a hot summer day
on a picnic table.
- Yum. Nothing better.
- Good posture is critical, Bob.
- People find that unusual that the fact that
posture will affect the way you, you know,
the way your jaw is seated in your skull.
- Exactly. Yeah.
The joint oftentimes will not work properly
with head forward posture.
- You can tell this when you try to eat.
If you eat with poor posture, it's hard.
If you can't swallow.
- Right.
Sometimes the chewing, the clicking may get worse.
It's like the shoulder joint. If you have poor posture,
the shoulder joint is exactly the same way.
It doesn't function well.
- Really important.
- Yep.
So, head up, chin in, get that good tall posture
and think about that.
We just did a video on posture.
- Yeah.
- That'd be a good one.
- Check it out.
- Absolutely.
And then stress reduction.
- Oh, you forgot sleeping supine. Right?
- Well, I switch those around in my head.
I have it memorized.
- Got it.
- Yeah.
Sleeping on your back as best.
- As opposed to your side or your stomach.
- Right.
Cause if you're on your side,
especially if you put your hand up there, you know,
you relax when you're sleeping,
then your jaw can be pushed out of where it needs to be
and cause a problem when you wake up
and then have some discomfort.
- As much as you can.
- Exactly.
Okay. Stress reduction, go for a walk, do some yoga,
some meditation, things to be relaxed.
- Always good to walk into nature.
- Yes.
- Yep.
- Let things flow out. Now.
This is, all those things seem like a lot of things to do,
but this is the core of it.
- Sure
- These exercises. Bob is going to show on his side
without the mic.
- I'm just going to just show it. Yeah.
- Yep.
So you can do this on both sides.
- At the same time,
I can't do it here. Cause you're going to hear that noise.
(thumps microphone)
It's real irritating. The first exercise,
it'll only take a minute or two, is your fingertips,
upward and downward, pushing in deep into the masseter.
That muscle.
Yeah. Get right in there, Bob. Go up.
Yeah.
Pushing up.
You feel that, Bob? You feel that muscle?
- Absolutely.
- It is. It's amazing.
I'm going to do it on this side. Cause it does feel good.
You can do that for 30 seconds.
Okay.
And then go up to your temporalis muscle
right behind your eye. Do the same thing in there.
Push it.
- Oh, that feels good.
- You see the wrinkles on his skin are pushing up the skin.
That's what you want to feel and see.
Do that for 30 seconds.
Now we're going to go back to the masseter.
Start at the top of it,
deep down and pull down on that muscle.
Just go the opposite direction.
- You don't realize that you probably have some stress
in there until you do this.
- [Brad] Yeah. Cause you didn't feel stressed before.
- No, I didn't.
- [Brad] But you realized there was stress.
You can see, it looks like you're ready to fall asleep, Bob.
Go up to the top.
- Feels really good.
- The temporalis.
Oh wow.
I can feel that. Think I gotta trigger point in there, Bob.
- My temporalis is more than my masseter.
- [Brad] You're right.
- There's quite often trigger points right on that muscle.
- [Brad] And it is getting better as I do this.
Now we're going to use our knuckles
and use a different method.
We're going to get in there on that masseter joint.
Now with this, the jaw's gently closed.
Don't tighten it. Just so your teeth are touching.
- When do we do circles?
- [Brad] Circles. Yep.
We'll work around. Go both directions.
Make sure you go up to the temporalis muscle.
Do the same thing again.
- That's the one that feels good for me.
- Now. I find if I use these knuckles
as opposed to these.
- Right. Well, I'm not sure. Which one is the, you got the,
(chuckling)
The CP's and these ones.
- That's the OT thing. But you do whatever feels good.
Work it more towards the fingertips or more towards the,
the second joint.
- And every knuckle works.
- Yeah. There you go. Now open up.
Yeah. I'll talk.
Bob's going to do it with his jaw open
and just repeat the same process. 30 seconds down and above.
And you know, you don't have to go exactly 30 seconds.
- What do you say, doc?
- You're doing good, Bob.
You gotta take a nap after this.
Very good
- The left side of my head is all relaxed.
- Yeah. So make sure you do both sides.
So you stay symmetrical and you don't have a smile
that goes like this.
So very good, good luck with that.
You know I'm 99% certain you're going to feel--
- Some relief.
And, probably, we had so many positive comments.
- Right.
People are surprised at how tight those muscles have become.
You might be having trouble at the joint,
but the muscles around it can cause that pain.
- Right. Right. Well what about, do we have a giveaway?
- Oh, we have a giveaway.
Oh no. It's Saturday.
- Oh it's Saturday?
- Yeah. We always do the giveaway,
but check it out tomorrow.
Go to Facebook
and it'll be pinned to the top of the page, the contest.
- Absolutely.
- And check out our podcast.
- Yeah, the podcast, we got that surgeon coming up,
talking about back surgery.
That's gonna be a couple of weeks, right?
- OLLIF is the type of surgery.
- Oh yeah. And that's the--
- They go between the muscles.
They don't cut muscles.
- With the laser? Oh no, the ultrasound.
- This is not, no, this is actually surgery.
- Don't tell them. Keep it secret. Keep it suspense.
All right. Take care.
- Take care.