Hello followers!
Today I’m going to talk about how we can reduce the amount of pain around joints and muscles of the head and neck. To begin with, firstly, pain could either initiate in muscles due to hyperactivity of them, or it could come from joints because of some degree of misalignment. Secondly, it normally involves women more than men and is more common between the ages of 20 and 35. Thirdly, it is directly stress-related and the symptoms are pain in the joint and muscles around jaws, ears, head, Neck, or even shoulders.
There is normally some difficulty with chewing, limited mouth opening (which is normally considered as opening of less than 4 centimetres) and in some cases there are some trigger points; these are the points that if touched, could trigger the pain. These trigger points could be located somewhere around the joints on the skin, on the neck or on the head or even on shoulders.
Alright! So, what is the treatment? That’s the million-dollar question! How can we reduce the amount of discomfort and pain?
patients need to avoid Hard, chewy foods and extreme mouth opening. We always suggest them to keep their hand underneath their lower jaw while yawning, just to make sure they don’t open their mouth too much.
The next is to reduce the amount of stress. There are 5 key points in stress reduction that I talked about in the previous blog, also, counselling could help a lot in reducing the amount of tension and stress.
Either a hot or cold compress, depending on the nature of the problem could be helpful. Weather it is a hyperaemic (increase in blood flow) or Ischaemic (lack of blood flow), we may either use cold or hot compress, and your practitioner is the right person to tell you which one it is.
Medications: medications should be administered under the supervision of a practitioner. They are categorised into 3 groups: muscle relaxants like Valium, analgesics, like Panadol, and painkillers with an anti-inflammatory component NSAIDS drugs (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like Ibuprofen.
Another way to reduce the pain is physical therapy.
Acupuncture could be helpful in some instances.
Finally, intra oral appliances made by your dentist could be helpful in some cases by providing some muscle relaxation. It also protects the teeth from harmful effects of
grinding.
I hope this very concise blog could have helped you with the issue of pain of muscles and joints.
Have a fantastic day!
