Spine and Sports Medicine NYC

Are you a pencil chewer, a jaw clencher? Have pain or tenderness in the jaw, aching pain in and around your ear? “You may want to give us a call,” says Spine and Sports Medicine Medical Director Brian Kessler, M.D. “Jaw pain may be an indicator of temporomandibular joint disorder, known as TMJ — an acute or chronic inflammation of the temporomandibular joint, which connects the lower jaw to the skull.”

TMJ disorders cause tenderness and pain in the temporomandibular joint — the joint on each side of your head in front of your ears, where your lower jawbone meets your skull. This joint allows you to talk, chew and yawn, and because it combines a hinge action with sliding motions, is one of the most complex joints in your body. Between 5 and 15 percent of people in the United States experience pain associated with TMJ disorders, according to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, with women between the ages of 30 and 50 most likely to develop TMJ disorders.

“Determining the cause of a TMJ problem is important,” says Dr. Kessler, “because it is the cause that guides the treatment. TMJ problems do not fall clearly into one medical area, so we use a multidisciplinary approach to find the best treatment possible for every patient, often working with specialists from pain management, neurology and physical medicine right in our offices in Manhattan.”