Arthrosis

My left jaw started to hurt me after giving birth. The pain was accompanied by a crunch, clicks, discomfort when chewing. Arthrosis was diagnosed at local institution. What should I do?

The symptoms of pain and the crunch may occur following precipitating factors. It can be a trauma of the maxillofacial area, ENT-organs infections, sitting with mouth open for a long time when visiting the dentist, hypothermia, overload. Perhaps, pregnancy and childbirth were such a factor in your case. The treatment goal in arthrosis is to reduce the load in temporomandibular joint. Treatment depends on the cause or the complex of causes that triggered the arthrosis. This may be due to the anatomical mismatch between the articular head size and the glenoid fossa. This also can be due to the long-term overload resulted from irregular bite and muscle imbalance. If increased tone of the masticatory muscles has led to increased abrasion of teeth, method of treatment with the restoration of the chewing surfaces and cutting edges of all teeth is optimal. But before that, splint therapy (mouth guards) is mandatory, which ensures the optimal position of the articular heads in articular fossae. Treatment is designed depending on the cause of changes in the joint. If the irregular bite is present pre-treatment by the orthodontist may be worthwhile.