The Surprising Link Between TMJ and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
Why would a pelvic health PT care about your TMJ symptoms? Crazy as it sounds, jaw pain and tension can contribute to pelvic pain. Your body doesn’t exist as separate compartments. It’s more like a web. When one part tenses, the effects can be felt down the chain. The jaw to pelvis connection is a well documented, and often overlooked, pattern in chronic pelvic pain.
Why are they connected?
The jaw and the pelvic floor both tend to unconsciously hold our stress, linked through connections of our deep facial system. Think of fascia like a head to toe body suit. If one area is pulled or knotted up, you’ll feel the pull all the way down. One of the key fascia pathways runs from the ankle, to the inside of your leg, through your pelvic floor and up through the throat and jaw. Different pathways of fascia act like a cohesive unit, so after months or years of jaw pain, the tension can land in your pelvis…or vice versa.
The nervous system.
If fascia is the connective tissue holding everything together, the nervous system is the communication network running through all of it. Often, when you have chronic pain, the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in its fight, flight, or freeze mode and doesn’t know how to switch back to rest and digest. This overprotection causes the brain to amplify pain in the problem areas. When your problem area is near a place in your body necessary to maintain your bodily functions, like the jaw, urethra, and rectum, it can amplify the pain exponentially.
Signs this may be your story.
You might want to take this connection seriously if you’re experiencing several of these at once.
Jaw clicking or end of day soreness
Pelvic floor tension
Bladder urgency/frequency
Difficulty opening your mouth as wide as you used to
Painful sex
Teeth grinding
Neck and shoulder tension
Tension headaches
Living with one of the above is frustrating enough, let alone several at once. But once the pattern is established, there are effective ways to treat it.
What can actually help.
The most important shift in finding and breaking this cycle is to treat the whole body. There is an entire human connected to the pelvis. That means finding an expert pelvic health physical therapist and a TMJ specialist. If you’re really lucky, you can find both specialties in one skilled therapist. I generally start with breath work, manual techniques, and nervous system regulation to release the tension patterns; followed by exercise to improve the coordination of your muscle groups. Most providers will start in the area with the most immediate symptoms and then move to either the jaw or pelvis from there.
It helps to have mental health care as well. Many people with chronic pelvic pain, unfortunately, have been passed from doctor to doctor with no relief or diagnosis in sight. Plus, having pain in the vulva or vaginal vault is a source of despair and shame for so many people and you simply can’t treat the physical aspect of this without also treating the emotional aspect.
So, if you’ve been suffering with stubborn pelvic pain, it’s time to look at the rest of your body, starting with the jaw.
Dr. Liz Klekman, PT, DPT, PCES
