Facial pain, headache, ringing in the ears, a clicking jaw, insomnia, teeth sensitive to heat or cold, backache, dizziness, and pain in front of the ears may seem to be unrelated, but these aches and pains may all result from temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome. This condition is caused by a misaligned jaw or simply by a habit of grinding or clenching the teeth. This action may stress the temporomandibular joint, the articulation between the mandibular condyle of the mandible and the mandibular fossa of the temporal bone. Loss of coordination of these structures affects the nerves that pass through the neck and jaw region, causing the symptoms. When this happens, tensing a muscle in the forehead can cause a headache, or a spasm in the muscle that normally opens the auditory tubes during swallowing can produce inability to clear the ears.

Doctors diagnose TMJ using an electromyograph, in which electrodes record muscle activity in four pairs of head and neck muscle groups. A form of treatment is transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), which stimulates the facial muscles for up to an hour. Another treatment is an orthotic device fitted by a dentist. Worn for 3 to 6 months, the device fine-tunes the action of jaw muscles to form a more comfortable bite. Finally, once the correct bite is determined, a dentist can use bonding materials to alter shapes of certain teeth to offer a more permanent solution for TMJ syndrome.

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