While most people think of Botox as a wrinkle treatment, it has many beneficial medical uses, too. Dr. Richard Fellows of Fellows Family Dental offers temporomandibular joint pain (TMJ) treatment with Botox in Pocatello, ID.
You can also use this simple injectable prescription for many other medical and cosmetic problems though. Let’s explore the many benefits of using Botox treatments to treat TMJ.
What is TMJ?
Two joints connect your skull to your lower jaw - the temporomandibular joints (TMJ). Located in front of each ear, these two joints consist of the mandible and the temporal bone. Disorders affecting the proper operation of these joints, medicine refers to as temporomandibular disorders (TMD). TMJ falls within the realm of TMD. It overworks itself by causing the teeth to grind. This repetitive motion harms both the muscles involved and the teeth. TMJ disorder can cause myofascial pain, jaw dislocation or a displaced disk, and rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis in the jaw joint.
How Botox Helps TMJ
With respect to TMJ, injections of Botox in the masseter muscles of the jaw let your muscles rest by paralyzing. Once the muscles cannot move, they stop clenching and grinding the teeth. This disuse lets them rest, so they reduce in size. Just as your arm muscles build up when you lift weights, so do your masseter muscles. Once you stop overworking that set of muscles, they can go back to their normal size. By paralyzing them, your muscles get to repair themselves and heal.
This relieves many of the symptoms of TMJ, including jaw pain, for up to five months. While analgesics and corticosteroid injections work for only a short time, getting shots of Botox in Pocatello, ID, provides long-term treatment from just one shot. The effectivity also builds with time, so if you continue Botox treatments at Fellows Family Dental, they become more effective. In many individuals, jaw pain causes secondary pain in the ears, shoulders, neck, and back, but Botox also alleviates this.
Contact Us Today
See how treatment with Botox in Pocatello, ID can help you by calling Dr. Fellows today at (208) 237-4357. Let Fellows Family Dental help you experience the many benefits of using botulism injections.