We have seen many patients involved in whiplash injuries over the years, and it is a very common occurrence for people to show up with pain in the jaw (temporomandibular joint, or TMJ), clicking in the jaw, or crooked movement in the jaw.

Problems like this can have a serious impact on your quality of life. Along with the pain local to the TMJ, you may also experience headaches radiating to the jaw. These headache can be quite severe, and demand attention.

A new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association studied TMJ disorders after whiplash accidents.

In this study, they studied the cases of 1,158 people. They asked them about their jaw pain and movement before and after the whiplash injury. They compared people who got into a whiplash injury compared to those who were injured in other ways.

They found that people with whiplash injuries were more likely to have reduced or painful jaw movement in the TMJ than those who had other types of injuries. They also found that women were more likely than men to have this type of dysfunction. Head position and headrest position had no impact on the likelihood of TMJ dysfunction after the injury.

It is interesting to me to note that doctor and patients (with mild symptoms) tend to minimize this symptom or disorder. This is a very common occurrence. If you have been injured in a car accident and have this problem, there are forms that you should be filling out periodically to chart the progress of the pain. It may go away on its own, but in many cases it will become a chronic problem, plaguing you for years to come or even for your lifetime.

We treat these cases in Sonoma and Santa Rosa as an office that treats whiplash patients. But if these jaw problems are severe, we have a network of people who specialize in treating TMJ disorders. In some severe cases custom made mouth guards will be fitted over the teeth to help gradually realign the TMJ complex.

It is also important to realign the upper neck joints to provide the necessary neuromuscular feedback to the nerves and muscles that control the jaw. This is done through chiropractic care, utilizing precision techniques, in our office of course…

Dr. Lloyd.
Chiropactor in Sonoma

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J Am Dent Assoc. 2007 Jan;138(1):86-93. Reduced or painful jaw movement after collision-related injuries: A population based study