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  • Stop Grinding Your Teeth With Help From Botox
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Hi. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Morgan. I'm a board certified plastic surgeon here at Atlanta. What I'm going to talk to you about in this video is treatment of bruxism which is tooth grinding, also called TMJ or temporal mandibular joint pain. It is pain that is caused by overactivity of the masseter muscle which is in this part of your face and let me show you on this skull. The masseter muscle attaches, and this here is the temporal mandibular joint right there, and the masseter muscle goes from there down here to your jaw, so it is the muscle that will close your jaw. So other muscles open the jaw, the masseter closes your jaw. So if you're grinding your teeth or your having trouble with the joint, you're biting down at this muscle gets very big.

Fortunately today we have a great treatment which is called Botox or any of the other neurotoxins, Xeomin, or Dysport, or other names of other brands. Botox is a toxin that is injected into the muscle that will relax the muscle temporarily and it does so by attaching to the nerve endings. And so when someone has a TMJ or muscle pain which may be chronic or maybe suddenly very acute, you need to see a plastic surgeon ideally and have muscle injections with the Botox. Now it's important when you're having a muscle injection for bruxism in the masseter to not go too high or else you'll get muscles that make your smile very funny. And so your surgeon will mark a line between the ear and the corner of your mouth and do the injections below. I always start low to get this part of the muscle and then if the upper fiber start to overreact I have patients come back and I give them more. I never liked to give too much if we don't know how much a person will react but these are great injections for treating chronic pain coming from overactivity of the masseter muscle of your jaw. It's a wonderful new treatment that we have to offer you so give us a call if we can help you.

Stop Grinding Your Teeth With Help From Botox

Dr. Elizabeth Morgan discusses how Botox can be used to treat TMJ, or tooth grinding. She demonstrates on a skeleton how she injects the patient to relieve the aliments that go along with TMJ.