Why is your jaw clicking and how you can avoid it!

What do you think is happening with your jaw?

→Clicking Jaw

Sometimes your jaw makes a clicking sound when you open or close your mouth. This happens to many people and usually doesn’t hurt or need any treatment. This is called disc displacement with reduction.

→Jaw Doesn’t Open All the Way

This is when your jaw can’t open fully because the disc inside the joint is fully sitting in front of the joint. It might hurt when you try to eat or talk. You also might not be able to move your jaw side to side very well. This is called disc displacement with no reduction.

→Jaw Gets Stuck Sometimes

Your jaw might get stuck closed for a bit. This is more likely to happen in people with a history of clicking noise in front of the ear, with the occasional jaw being stuck closed on waking. It often fixes itself. This is called episodic locking.

→Jaw Pops Out of Place

This happens when you open your jaw too wide, and get stuck open. It happens because the joint moved out of the socket. Seizure, trauma to your face, or hyper flexible jaw joints can cause this more frequently. This is called TMJ luxation.

→Jaw Gets Stuck Open

Sometimes your jaw can get stuck open, but you can close it yourself. This happens when the jaw joint moves out of the disc but not necessarily the socket. This is called open locking.