When your jaw drops it means you’ve seen something unbelievable. This occurs naturally even to the most frigid of us. But a popping jaw is something else. Unless you’re a mixed martial arts fighter, getting a popping jaw is as rare as sashimi with bones. When your jaw pops, it sounds like you are sick or trying to be funny.
Common causes of popping jaw
An irregular click in your jaw or any joint of your body should be taken as a symptom. Your jaw is a joint, so it can crack now and then.
1. Tepromandibular Joint Disorder (TMD). But if your jaw pops, it can only mean a bone or cartilage dislocation. This is what experts call Tempromandibular Joint Disorder (TMD). This is caused by stress or by taking a powerful blow to the jaw in a boxing match, a previous bone surgery, having your wisdom teeth pulled off, or taking an unbalanced bite.
It means there is a disc that’s out of place on your jaw’s joints. This disc gets stuck every time you move your mouth or take a bite- the disc pushes itself out the socket and the joint, thus creating a popping or clicking sound. In the process muscles around this area get stretched too much they end up swelling. If they swell your jaw swells up too.
2. Deep-seated stress. Another cause of jaw rattling is emotional stress. You can tell people are in various stages of grief by the way they cry with clenched teeth. Later on as their body grows cold, they start to chill, and then their jaw starts to rattle and pop. It’s no ordinary emotional stress then—often times it’s cataclysmic in scale like the death of a loved one, parents, spouse, a sibling, or anyone whom you hold dear. This is the most difficult jaw popping cause to treat because it needs specialist attention and treatment. The treatment takes years. In many cases some people don’t fully recover.
How to treat jaw popping
While your jaw popping episodes remain manageable, you may be able to do something about them. But don’t play doctor in situations you can’t handle.
1. See your dentist or bone doctor. If your jaw pops because of a joint dislocation, the best person to see is your dentist or bone doctor. He can give you anti-inflammation medicine, for starters, and later, he can guide you to do jaw exercises, or give you a night splint. You have many choices along these lines because there are many dentists who specialize in this field.
2. Don’t do jaw popping for fun. Some people have the knack for fooling around by using their joints as sound effects. This may seem harmless at first, but in the long run it leads to joint dislocation. Your socket and joint go in different directions, and this irritates your muscles and nerves. So instead of you making fun of others, the tables are turned on you.
3. See your shrink if gets serious. As for the emotional and psychological root of jaw popping, you can never take it lightly. Being the sufferer your thoughts are colored by your perception. You should be the last person to diagnose yourself. If it’s not too frequent, however, you can ward off negative thoughts by hanging out with your friends and do fun stuff together. But when it persists, you need to go through psychotherapy, preferably with a practitioner you trust.
You can do many other tricks that can make people laugh. Spare your jaws, please.
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