Jaw or temporomandibular joint pain is quite common after a car crash, even when there is no principal injury to the face. The condition can be confusing to health professionals, as, quite often, the jaw symptoms may not appear immediately after the incident, often developing many weeks or even months down the road.
New studies from the last 10 years suggests that jaw discomfort after a car wreck actually originates in the spine.
When your spine is injured during a wreck, the pain signals travel from the vertebrae to your brainstem. Here, nerve fibers from many different parts of the body meet together before they travel to the pain centers of your brain.
When these nerve fibers meet, the impulses can get confused and crossed. It's similar to the arm pain felt by a person having a heart attack. The nerve signals from the heart converge with the nerve signals of the arm, and the person feels the pain in the arm instead of the genuine source.
The nerves of your face connect in the neck with pain receptors from your spine. When constant pain signals from your injury overstimulate the nerve junctions, you can experience pain in other parts of your head, including your jaw.
And since the jaw is feeling discomfort, it can cause the muscles in the area to tense up, causing more pain.
Chiropractic care helps by helping your body repair the original injury in the spine, which then reduces pain in other parts of your body.
If you've been in a motor vehicle accident, Dr. Bogan is here to help. We can help pinpoint the root cause of your pain and develop a plan of action to help you reclaim your health. We have helped many patients in Tulsa, OK improve from these sorts of problems since 1981 and we might be able to help you!
Call our office today at (918) 832-7880 for a consultation or for more information.
