Could My TMJ Be Causing Headaches ?
Often, people suffering from TMJ pain also have headaches to boot. It doesn't seem fair does it? The question many people have is are they related events or separate occurrences? While one doesn't preclude the other, they very often have a common connection, two really. One ismechanical / postural and the other is neurological.
Postural / Mechanical Causes of Headaches
Last time we saw this guy in an article we related how his posture impacted neck, jaw and upper back issues with an emphasis on the TMJ. Let's look at him again only this time we will focus on the head and neck: First, normal posture would be the head balanced directly over the shoulders, the phone shifts the head forward. Second, in order to look down at his screen, the head is angled down, this is easy to tell by comparing the arm of his glasses to the horizontal. Finally, in order to balance the head going forward, the upper back is forced to push back and this ends up rounding his shoulders. This is commonly termed Forward Head Posture (FHP). Last time we saw how the FHP pulled the jaw backward and could cause TMJ. This time focus on what happens when you stress the upper neck by looking down at screen; this puts stress and strain across the structures of the neck, ligaments, muscles and joints. This by itself is sufficient to cause neck pain and pain that radiates up and over the top of the head. In addition to stressing these structures, this posture also causes stress on a part of the nervous system called the trigeminocervical nucleus. I am going to go a little bit science nerd on you here for a second, but trust me, it is really important for understanding headaches, and leads to the second connection between the jaw and headaches: Neurological.
One Ring To Rule Them All !
OK, please forgive me for the Lord of The Rings reference. I just finished reading the trilogy (It stuck pretty close to the movie!). For those of you not familiar with the story line, suffice it to say that there is one ring in the whole land, that when the villain possess it, things are going to get bad. Interestingly enough, there is actually one neurological location that ALL HEADACHES have to pass through: The Trigeminal Nucleus . Those who have been patients in our office over the years have undoubtedly heard us relate the nervous system to the wiring of your house. For instance, you may have a lamp that plugs into the wall, that wall socket is connected to a line that may have several other things on it (your TV, refrigerator etc.) and eventually that line goes to a fuse box with a lot of other lines. All the lines in the fuse box are connected to the main line that comes in from outside and runs your homes electrical system. In this analogy the lamp would represent an end organ ( a muscle, patch of skin, organ) the line in the wall would represent one of the spinal nerves, the fuse box would represent various nuclei (these are higher order processing spots for information before it goes to the brain) located in the spinal cord and brainstem and the outside line would represent your brain. If there is something wrong with the line in the wall, like it is overloaded, it can flip a breaker switch. Depending on how sophisticated the wiring in your house is it might just shut off the power altogether to that line, or it might re-route part of it and text your i-phone! The wiring in your body is VERY SOPHISTICATED! The primary place that processes both neck pain and headache pain is The Trigeminal Nucleus, The one ring to rule them all ! Guess where the Trigeminal Nucleus gets it's information ? The upper three nerves in the neck, and the TMJ! The upper three nerves in the neck are connected to all kinds of muscle, ligaments and joints in and around your neck, head and shoulders, including your jaw. If any of these structures are compromised, giving either to much or to little information to your brain, pain can ensue. So headache /neck pain and TMJ issues have some very common connections, and often go together.
