Neck and jaw pain syndrome are not typical, especially when lacking other related symptoms, but some patients do experience primary pain in the neck and temporomandibular region, as well as in their teeth. These types of recurrent and chronic symptoms can puzzle doctors and torment patients for extended periods of time without treatment providing any significant relief.
Why would pain be present in just the neck and jaw? Is it likely that the cause of both painful locations is the same or are 2 different source processes at work to create such an unusual symptomatic profile?
In this focused article, we will answer many questions about neck and jaw pain, including its origins, symptoms and the optimal way to cure the misery without compromising overall health.
Causes of Neck and Jaw Pain
Pain that only exists in the neck and jaw is unusual. There can be many possible reasons for these expressions to exist alone, with the various causes of neck pain being detailed in our dedicated resource section on the topic and jaw pain potentially being created by nerve, joint, tooth, fascial and other sources. However, when the symptoms exist together from a single common source, this can narrow down the diagnostic possibilities considerably to the most logical possible explanations presented below:
Cervicogenic headache syndromes often attack the upper neck and jaw, rather than traditional headache locations. Jaw pain from cervicogenic headache is usually unilateral and might move about in the mouth from the corner of the jaw to the teeth regularly.
Temporomandibular dysfunction and pain can be caused by regional ischemia, which is also the most typical source of treatment-resistant, chronic neck symptomology. These oxygen deprivation syndromes undermine the nerves ability to function and result in persistent pain messages regionally.
Occasionally, muscular issues in the side of the neck, below and behind the ear can influence nerves that serve the greater jaw and face anatomy, resulting in pain, tingling, numbness and general dysfunction. These types of nerve problems can sometimes be traced to known injury, RSI, wry neck or other source, but are often idiopathic and might follow the ischemia model noted above.
Neck and Jaw Symptoms
Neck symptoms can range greatly in location and expression. For such a small anatomical region, the neck is literally packed with muscular, vascular and neurological tissues, including some of the most important in the body. Therefore, the area is susceptible to suffering symptoms in a diversity of patterns. We detail the full range of neck pain symptoms in our dedicated section covering the topic.
Jaw symptoms might include pain upon movement, pain upon pressure, or just constant pain. This pain is often centered in the rear corner of the jaw, near the temporomandibular joint and might feel as if it exists under and slightly behind the ear. Some patients have tooth pain in addition to, or in exchange for, actual jaw pain. Other common symptoms that may accompany jaw pain include pain in the cheek/cheekbone region, eye pain and brow pain, as well as pain in the side of the neck or throat.
Neck and Jaw Pain Therapy
Accurate diagnosis is the most important consideration for any chronic health issue, but in the dorsal pain treatment sector, this objective is also incredibly difficult to achieve. There are just so many possible symptomatic sources and doctors still have not universally embraced diagnosing conditions which truly cause pain in favor of these which are unfairly blamed for creating pain.
Basically, many scapegoat conditions may exist in the neck to take the blame for the pain, while being innocent all along. These structural abnormalities might exist, but are not pathological. With the high rate of degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, facet joint changes, cervical lordosis changes, arthritic accumulations and general spinal stenosis all being virtually universal in the mid to lower neck of adults, there are many scapegoats on which pain can be mistakenly attributed.
Since the muscles and nerves of the face and neck are closely related, some of these conditions are also deemed to be the source of jaw pain. In most other cases, the symptoms are ruled independent and the jaw pain is usually attributed to temporomandibular disorders (TMD) or various other pain processes, like myofascial pain or trigeminal neuralgia.
Before seeking any type of treatment, we highly recommend focusing your complete attention on attaining a correct and verified diagnosis of what is exactly causing the pain. Without this, it really does not matter what type of treatment you attempt, since you will be simply throwing darts at the board in the dark. It will be a guessing game and the outcome of your neck pain treatment will likely prove to be a complete waste of time and money.
We generally find that most chronic and treatment-resistant forms of neck and jaw pain are ischemic in nature and therefore suggest treating the condition with our proven pain relief program. This effective and safe plan has helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world to break free of chronic pain, even when all traditional types of treatment have failed them. Since there are no risks, and the cost is very low, we would recommend starting with this path and going from there.
