In general, you should avoid foods that are chewy, tough, crunchy, or oversized. These items require extra chewing or overextending your jaw and can aggravate your TMJ pain. Some examples of bad foods for TMJ pain are: Chewy or tough meat, like steak.
What foods make your TMJ pain worse? It's best to avoid anything chewy, tough, crunchy, or too large that requires you to overextend your jaw. Try to stay away from beef jerky, gummies, caramel, steak, bagels, raw carrots, corn nuts and whole apples.
Chewy food
One of the categories of food that can exacerbate symptoms of a TMJ disorder is food that has a chewy consistency. Chewy foods make the jaws use small, repetitive motions that can lead to jaw pain and stiffness. Tough cuts of meat and chewy candies, such as caramels, are some of the worst culprits.
For example, holding your head forward while looking at a computer all day strains the muscles of your face and neck. Other factors that may make TMJ symptoms worse include poor diet and lack of sleep. Many people end up having "trigger points." These are contracted muscles in your jaw, head, and neck.
Certain activities (called triggers) strain the TMJ, making symptoms worse. The tips below can help you stay away from common triggers and limit strain: Don't eat hard or chewy foods. These include nuts, pretzels, popcorn, chips, gum, caramel, gummy candies, carrots, whole apples, hard breads, and even ice.
Hard / Chewy Foods
Chewing gum and crunching ice can trigger a flare up, along with eating hard or chewy foods that strain the TMJ, such as bagels, whole apples, gummy candies, and nuts.
Remember that for most people, discomfort from TMJ disorders will eventually go away on its own. Simple self-care practices are often effective in easing symptoms. If treatment is needed, it should be based on a reasonable diagnosis, be conservative and reversible, and be customized to your special needs.
If you want your TMJ to heal naturally, you must give your jaw as much rest as possible. Switching up your diet for the next few weeks to include softer foods will greatly reduce the amount of pressure placed on your jaw joint and help you heal faster.
TMJ disorders are at least twice as prevalent in women as men, and women using either supplemental estrogen or oral contraceptives are more likely to seek treatment for these conditions.
Best Foods for TMJ Pain
Fresh Fruit: Biting into an apple isn't the best idea if your jaw hurts. Instead, choose bananas, canned fruits packed in 100% juice, or applesauce. Ripe melons and other soft fruits will provide you with the vitamins and minerals you need.
The Best Diet To Decrease TMJ Pain
Fruits - Ripe melons, soft pears, bananas, applesauce, and canned fruits in 100% fruit juice are good choices. Blend delicious smoothies that contain whole fruits and vegetables.
According to research, taking magnesium supplementation is really helpful to get relief from TMJ pain. Keep in mind that magnesium has the ability to relax the muscles. As reported, most Americans have low magnesium levels, so taking magnesium supplementation can make a huge difference in that case.
During TMJ, fresh fruit juices, vegetable or chicken soup, broth, milk, and other foods should be consumed. To recuperate, the jaw must be given enough time to rest. A well-balanced liquid diet will not only assist you to accomplish this but will also provide you with the nutrition you need to keep going.
Increase your anti-inflammatory food intake in your diet to relieve TMJ pain. It's important to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains and beans. Fish that are rich in omega-3 acids, like mackerel and salmon, have antioxidant properties which can reduce inflammation and ease the pain as well.
When you consume cold drinks or frozen foods, the pain in your jaw could end up becoming intensified, which could lead to your muscles becoming tense. You should avoid such a scenario at all cost.
Overview: TMJ Pain mainly comes from the muscles getting in a spasm and can be relieved by taking Calcium and Magnesium which are natural muscle relaxants.
Sometimes the main cause is excessive strain on the jaw joints and the muscle group that controls chewing, swallowing, and speech. This strain may be a result of bruxism. This is the habitual, involuntary clenching or grinding of the teeth. But trauma to the jaw, the head, or the neck may cause TMD.
TMJ symptoms last anywhere from a couple of days to a few weeks. Some TMJ disorders can last months or years.
Eventually, over time that creates a tension in your jaw muscle where the joints pull out of alignment and places abnormal pressure on the TMJ joint. This is all caused by stress. The early stages of pain associated with temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ) is called myofascial pain disorder.
Laying on your side with a hand under your pillow can also exacerbate the symptoms of TMD. This damaging sleep position creates a misalignment for your head and neck, making TMJ pain very likely. The best sleep position for TMD is sleeping on your back in order to keep your head and neck properly aligned.
For starters, you must stop any habits of teeth grinding or clenching, and anything that puts pressure on the joint. You must also start living on a soft diet, to spare your teeth from putting in too much pressure to bite on something, as this directly puts pressure on the TMJ.
Change up your sleeping position
Sleeping on your back or sides allows your jaw to fall into a more rested position, is more relaxing for your neck and therefore is the best sleeping position for your jaw and neck.