TMJ is one of the biggest obstacles that might prevent some people from eating their favorite meal or to just eating anything at any time.

Why you might ask? Well it's just simply painful to do that. Opening your jaw when you have TMJ is very painful; the pain could be compared as slamming a door on your finger, maybe even worse.

You'd probably say, 'well I can deal with that, it'll go away.' True, but when you suffer from TMJ that happens every time you open up your mouth.

If you don't have that, you might know of someone that might, if not you'll most likely meet one someday; they are mostly discreet about it though.

It is hard to understand that you have that, which is why sometimes they don't share it with the world.

If you think about it, you wouldn't go off telling people that 'yeah, I have this jaw problem' because most likely they'll think that you're probably a weirdo or something like that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you've never had it, then it'd be hard to completely understand.

Now what are the symptoms; here is a list of some of them:

-Jaw popping and locking

-Limited opening

-Extreme pain on the jaw

-Headaches, Ear aches (with no infection)

-Neck and Shoulder pain

Of course these TMJ problems don't go away super fast; there aren't overnight TMJ cures. But there are things such as doing some TMJ exercises, to improve your jaw movement:

Here is something that you can try: (preferably in front of a mirror)

-Open your mouth, with your face looking straight, very slowly (there might some difficulty).

-Second open your mouth as wide as possible VERY SLOWLY, if it starts hurting stop!

-Repeat this twice a day.

*This will help your jaw to open to and close correctly.

+Massage your jaw in gentle circular motion on both sides.

Another one of the TMJ Exercises you can do is:

-Open your mouth as wide as possible (SLOWLY), but when you do it, shift your jaw to the right; close slowly.

-Do the same again, but to the left.

-Repeat this twice a day.

*This will alleviate the pain from the tight jaw muscles.

+For this also don't forget to the massage your jaw in gentle circular motion on both sides.

Don't stress about it either, do it slowly. Remember that stress could not only make your TMJ worse, but it could also affect your health!