Can TMJ Disorder Cause Difficulty Opening the Mouth
Have you ever tried to open your mouth to eat or yawn and felt it just wouldn’t open fully? That stiffness or pain can catch
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The TMJ is one of the most accommodating joints in the body due to it’s position in the postural chain and it’s connections via muscles, ligaments, tendons and FASCIA. Fascia is now being considered as a separate organ because of it’s extensive size from head to toe. Any pull anywhere will have an effect in the rest if the body. It is a tissue that holds the organs and other structures within the body in place.
The tongue is attached to the lower jaw by a fascia called the frenum. It is a thin tissue that we can observe when you raise your tongue. With the mouth fully open, the tip of the tongue should be able to touch the palate. If you cannot, then there is every possibility that you have Ankyloglossia or Tongue-tie.
It is generally a genetic defect that is present since birth. It affects the suckling of the baby as well as the growth pattern during the development stage of the child. If the tongue isn’t resting on the palate during the growth phase (which happens because the tongue is held to the floor of the mouth by the tongue tie), the jaw bones don’t expand and grow 3 dimensionally. This leads to malocclusion like crowded teeth or protruded jaws. Extracting teeth and orthodontically retracting, is only going to worsen the airway.The tongue tie also destabilises the muscle tonicity of the tongue with a backward positioning that would further occlude the airway.
This is the reason why most of the obstructive sleep apnoea patients have a tongue tie.
OSA patients generally clench/grind their teeth as a compensation to open the airway. However, this is at the expense of the TMJ and the muscles of the head and neck region.
A tongue tie needs to be properly diagnosed by a specialist.
We treat them as part of our protocol with comprehensive tongue training exercises and laser frenuloplasty to enable faster healing and lesser pain.
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