The only thing doctors can do is give out strong pain relief medicines or muscle relaxation drugs. There is nothing else they can do.

All these medicines fail. Even if they reduce the pain a little for a while in the beginning, they'll stop working, little by little, as your body gets immune to them.

Some dentist specialize in TMJ. They put a dental implant in your mouth. It may well be worth getting these implants. They may save you from grinding your teeth at night. But most likely, they won't relief your pain.

So why do TMJ experts fail you?

It's not really their fault. This is a very complicated this condition. There is probably no one cause for all TMJ. Most likely, it's more like a combination of many factors. What makes this even more complicated is, the factors are most likely both emotional and physical.

Intense stress, grief, or anger often trigger TMJ. So can injuries (from a car accident for example). You may not even have noticed it when you accidentally bumped into something. Few days later, you began to feel this pain in your jaw. There is often no way of knowing what originally triggered your TMJ. Okay, enough of what we don't know?

We know for a fact, the jaw joints are always misplaced to some degree. Tiny misplacement can be enough to cause terrible pain. Some patients think the irritation is even worse than the pain. Here are some obvious symptoms...

Jaw locking opened or closed ... Uncontrollable jaw or tongue movements ... Clicking, popping jaw joints ... Clenching or grinding at night ... Grating sounds ... Inability to open the jaw smoothly or evenly ... Jaw deviates to one side when opening ... Inability to "find bite" with teeth Limited opening ... Frequent, migraine type headaches ... Extreme pain in cheek muscles ... Discomfort or pain to any of these areas.

...are just few obvious symptoms. You may have some or all of them. Or non at all. Like I said, this is very complicated condition.

Here is another fact we know: The jaw muscles are always very stiff. They're sometimes, not always, soar, or torn. But they're always stiff. The pressure from your tense jaw muscles pushes your jaw further out of position. It supports its misplacement. This makes your problem way worse than it has to be.

The same thing happens when people suffering back problems. The back muscles are weak and tense. The problem may have begun by putting too much strain on the back or working in a wrong position. Or it may have begun with a small injury that didn't seem so bad at the time.

To avoid the mild pain, the muscles in the back get tense. It jut happens. This is a function nature gave us to deal with pain. The real problem begins when the tension in the back muscles push the spine (even just a little bit) out of place. What should only have been minor problem if the person had exercised and strengthen the back muscles, is now chronic, serious condition.

The same thing happens with TMJ. What might have started out as minor problem (maybe you got hit in the jaw or had short period of intense stress) is now becoming chronic problem, because the jaw muscles now push your jaw out of place. This, of course, causes series of problems.

The two jaw joints don't work as a team any more. You may even be rubbing bone to bone. No wonder everything is stuck. And the pain is horrible. Constant torture.

Nerves get squeezed. Either directly by the misplaced jaw or the tense muscles around it. The same nerves lie around the jaw as the ears. The same nerves that control the balance system. That's why you may experience dizziness or lack or balance for example?

There is no isolation when it comes to muscles. All muscles in your body are interconnected. Either directly or through the nerve system. If your jaw muscles get tense, so will all muscles closely connected to it. Most obvious example is your neck and shoulders. I'm sure they've turned into rocks since your TMJ began to develop. Right?

You may not have noticed how all the small muscles in your head (including the throat muscles, tongue, and eyes) have more tension in them now than they did before. This is serious.

You don't have to imagine all the secondary symptoms this indirect tension from the jaw is creating. You're experiencing some or all of them yourself... balance problems, "vertigo", dizziness, or disequilibrium voice fluctuations hissing, buzzing, ringing, or roaring sounds blurring of vision clogged, stuffy, "itchy" ears, feeling of fullness tongue pain frequent coughing or constant clearing of throat arm and finger tingling, numbness and or pain bloodshot eyes.

...plus endless other secondary symptoms, some people experience but others don't.

The only way to reverse the development of TMJ and heal your self is to loosen up and strengthen both the jaw muscles and all the muscles around the jaw. This can be done using simple, jet very powerful exercises:

1) The jaw exercises strengthen and loosen up the jaw muscles directly. As you practice these exercises, the jaw muscles stops pushing the jaw into wrong position. Instead, it guides the jaw joints into right place and that way heals your TMJ.

2) The tongue exercises, loosen up the tongue muscle. Even healthy people have too much tension in their tongue. People who suffer from TMJ are way off balance there.

3) The throat exercises strengthen the throat. The throat muscles are some of these 'hidden' muscles we seldom pay attention to. They're however extremely important and if they're stiff, you'll suffer several symptoms in your throat.

4) There is almost no separation between the neck and shoulders and jaw muscles. If one is stiff, the others tense up immediately. That makes the neck and shoulder exercises as important as the direct jaw exercises.

5) Don't underestimate the importance of breathing. Lack of oxygen flow to muscles weakens them and makes them stiff. One more contributing factor to TMJ. The breathing exercises inflate your muscles with oxygen, giving them extra boost to heal.

These exercises have been practiced successfully by thousands of people suffering from TMJ and it still surprises me how effective they are, considering how many causes lie behind this complex condition.

But before you celebrate, let me be brutally honest with you.

You won't be totally pain free over night (although it's amazing how quickly these exercises sometimes work). It will take some time to reverse the tension that has been building up in your muscles for long time (even before you noticed any symptoms.

The muscles around the jaw must regain their old strength and flexibility. So must the jaw muscle itself. But that's not enough. The jaw muscles must guide and lock the jaw joints into natural healthy position. This happens little by little (often fraction of an inch a day).