TMJ/ TMD Journal
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
SCM and TMJ can be connected!I received the following information from a fellow TMJ sufferer about our SCM muscles. SCM are the sternocloidmuscles. These are the large muscles that come from behind our ear and move down our neck to beneath our clavicle.
When you have tmj these muscles can also be affected because if our jaws are out of alignment then it affects our neck and the rest of our body. SCM can affect our head movements and how we breathe and swallow.
Check it out, especially the Symptoms section:
Attachments:
Sternal Division: Lateral surface of mastoid process / front of manubrium
Clavicular Division: Lateral surface of mastoid process / upper border of the front of
clavicle.
Action:
Flexes neck and head forward, bringing chin to chest. Flexes neck sideways,
bringing ear to shoulder. Stabilizes head (as a "check-rein) when tilting chin
upward, or during talking and chewing. Assists in swallowing.
As an accessory muscle of respiration, SCM lifts upper ribs in breathing when
neck is erect or hyper-extended (not when head is bowed).
Entrapments:
May entrap spinal accessory nerve (cranial nerve XI) en route to trapezius causing
weakness in trapezius or torticollis of muscular origin. SCM motor fibers often
originate as part of the vagus nerve.
Symptoms:
Sternal Division. Pain referred upward to cheek and sinuses, occiput, eye
(orbicularis), top of head; pain referred downward to sternum. Tearing of eye, visual
disturbances when viewing parallel lines. Chronic "sore throat" when swallowing,
possibly with a chronic dry cough.
Clavicular Division: Pain referred bilaterally across forehead; frontal sinus-like
headache, ear ache, nausea, dizziness, car-sickness, faulty weight perception of
held objects, and hearing loss (reversible).
Strained by:
Whiplash injuries, structural faults (short leg or small hemi-pelvis), overhead
painting, carpentry, wallpapering; horseback riding, front-row movie seats,
coughing, chest breathing, working for long-periods with head turned to one side
("word-processor headache").
Many thanks to Anna for supplying this information.
Hope this helps our fellow TMJ sufferers :-)
Have a good one!
jan
