03 / Understand the area
Jaw joint & chewing muscles
Chewing, yawning and talking can make jaw pain hard to ignore. The joint, the chewing muscles and the teeth are all possible sources.
An educational guide that covers the left and right sides alike. Where it hurts is a useful clue, but only a clue.
A useful starting point
What this area can tell you.
The jaw joint sits just in front of the ear. Pain there can overlap with soreness in the cheek or temple, and a painful tooth may need a dentist. A click by itself doesn't explain the cause or tell you that you need treatment. The more useful details: if your jaw catches or locks, if you can't open as wide as you used to, and which foods have gotten hard to chew. Any assessment should look at the teeth as well as jaw movement and the muscles.
Notice the pattern
Three questions to bring with you.
You don't need to know what it is before you come in. These are details that help when you tell us what you're feeling.
- Is the pain in front of the ear, in the chewing muscles or around one particular tooth?
- Does your jaw catch or lock, and has how wide you can comfortably open changed?
- What brings it on: chewing, yawning, waking up, or a long conversation?
When to get help sooner
Facial swelling with fever needs urgent dental or medical care. Trouble breathing or swallowing, or jaw pain with chest pressure, sweating or breathlessness, needs emergency care.
Follow the connection
Possible explanations. Better questions.
These guides cover conditions and patterns that may overlap with this area. Think of them as a place to start our conversation: no body map can tell you which one, if any, you have.
What the studies found, and where they stop
How the research fits this area.
The chronic TMD review found support for some movement, coping and conservative care approaches, with varying certainty. It doesn't cover a tooth infection, a fracture or a jaw that has suddenly locked.
How we select and explain sources ↗Follow the evidence
Research, with context.
Selected published sources behind what we've written, each with what it found and what it can't tell us. We give you both halves because no paper can diagnose you or predict how your own care will go.
Management of chronic pain secondary to temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials
153 trials involving 8,713 participants contributed to the network analyses of chronic TMD pain.
What it foundAmong comparisons with more certain evidence, approaches supporting movement and coping improved pain. These included selected supervised exercises, mobilization and psychological approaches.
What it can't tell usCertainty varied by treatment and outcome, and evidence about adverse events was low or very low certainty. It isn't evidence for treating every headache or an acute jaw injury.
Publication details & citation
Yao et al. Management of chronic pain secondary to temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. BMJ. 2023. DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2023-076226.
Read the publication record
Our editorial policy explains how to read these sources and what our clinical-review labels mean.
Your next step
Bring your questions.
We’ll start there.
Your answers to those three questions are where we start. We go over your history and symptoms, examine you, and explain what we found before we recommend anything. If it turns out to be something another doctor should look at, we'll tell you.
Anatomy: BodyParts3D, © DBCLS, CC BY 4.0. Model & rendering credits. Return to the full body explorer.