406-248-7172Did you know that when your jaw is in its optimal position, it can make you look more youthful than other people in your age range? We refer to this as “TMJ harmony” where your jaw, bite, and TMJ work together to lessen stress, tension, headaches, jaw pain, and even unwanted premature aging.
Problems With a Bad Bite
Now that we tend to live longer than our forebears, it’s important that we look and feel our best for as long as possible. When your jaw and bite are misaligned, this can create problems with talking properly, chewing, and sleeping normally, leaving you fatigued when you wake up. That’s because poor bites move pressure unevenly on the jaw, manifesting as chronic facial pain. Proper jaw alignment means a healthier, harmonized jaw and bite.
Such a bite means your teeth will fit together properly so that you have less neuromuscular stress in your head and neck areas. In fact, worn down and misaligned teeth create stress in these areas, showing up as TMJ pain, headaches along with neck and back pain during your day. Temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ) is what we call the pain you feel in your jaws and their various movements. This poor bite alignment can leave you hearing clicking and popping noises along with earaches, neck aches, pain behind the eyes, and even sensitive teeth as well as hip, knee, and ankle pain! Even basic oral movement can become challenging so even a normal yawn can leave you feeling unrelenting pain.
Treating a Bad Bite
A correctly aligned bite can give you your life back! Thanks to bite correction, we can help you align your upper and lower jaws in an ideal U-shape with your upper teeth coming together in a comfortable overbite that sits over your lower teeth. Better oral health and greater self-esteem can be yours with healthy bite correction.
There are various treatments for correcting one’s bite and preventing improper jaw closure and occlusal equilibration is one of them. This treatment involves reshaping the biting surfaces of your teeth, allowing your jaw to close the way it should. And when your lower jaw can close correctly within the temporomandibular socket, you’ll likely experience immediate pain relief!
Diagnostic tools that allow us to accurately diagnose the problem will be taken. For example, if you have a structural disorder within the joint itself, a panoramic X-ray, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to see the soft tissue areas around the disc joint, or a CT (computed tomography) scan to evaluate the bony areas of the jaw and hinge joint may be taken.
Treatment of a misaligned bite can often be done using a bite appliance to correct the bite over a period of time using micro-adjustments that help the jaw muscles relax with ease. In addition to correcting bite alignment with the help of an intra-oral appliance to fix TMJ issues, orthodontia or maxillofacial surgery can also be helpful. In the case of surgery, you would be referred to an oral surgeon or oral and maxillofacial surgeon who will evaluate your TMJ condition for optimal treatment.
Call for Treatment Solutions
If you are weary of experiencing chronic pain from a TMJ disorder because of how your teeth fit together, a bite correction may help you find much-needed relief. A properly done adjustment (or equilibration) can often be done with orthodontic treatment (with or without jaw reconstruction) and possible dental restorations. If you would like to know more about treating your TMJ/TMD symptoms that can improve your day-to-day quality of life, we welcome you to give us a call today!