Have you been waking up with jaw pain lately? You’re not alone. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed something interesting at our practice—more and more people are coming in with jaw discomfort, facial tension, and persistent headaches that seem to appear out of nowhere.
“Since 2020, there’s been a real shift,” explains Dr. Andrea, who specializes in TMJ and jaw dysfunction at Structure Integrative Healthcare. “We started seeing patients dealing with jaw pain right when stress levels were at an all-time high. People were clenching and grinding at night without even realizing it, then waking up with symptoms they’d never experienced before.”
The culprit? Often it’s nocturnal habits—the clenching and grinding we do in our sleep when stress takes over (and let’s be honest, who isn’t stressed these days?). These patterns put constant strain on the masseter (your cheek muscle) and temporalis (temple muscle), creating a domino effect of dysfunction that can lead to headaches, neck pain, and that familiar clicking or popping in your jaw.
Why We Don’t Just Mask the Problem
Here’s where our approach differs from what you might hear elsewhere. Many dental offices now offer BOTOX® for jaw pain, and while it temporarily relaxes tight muscles, it doesn’t solve the underlying issue. Once it wears off (sometimes in just a few weeks) patients often find themselves right back where they started, or worse.
“As a chiropractor, I want to find the root cause and then teach patients different ways to address it,” says Dr. Andrea. “When someone does their exercises in that repetitive motion, your body starts to break up those patterns immediately—there’s less clenching, less grinding.”
A Whole-Body Solution
What many people don’t realize is that jaw problems rarely exist in isolation. Your jaw mechanics are directly influenced by your neck position, your posture, even how you hold tension in your shoulders. That’s why our treatment looks at the complete picture.
Dr. Andrea uses specialized manual techniques to release the facial muscles where tension accumulates, combined with gentle adjustments when needed and personalized exercises you can do at home. Many patients find that as their jaw pain improves, those nagging headaches start disappearing too.
You Don’t Have to Live With It
If you’ve been told your jaw pain is just something you’ll have to manage, or that a nightguard is your only option, we’d love to offer you a different perspective. True healing happens when we address what’s causing the problem in the first place, and that’s where chiropractic care for TMJ really shines.
Ready to find lasting relief? Contact our Naperville office to schedule an evaluation with Dr. Andrea and discover what’s really causing your jaw pain.