TMD Self-Assessment: Could Your Symptoms Point to a Temporomandibular Disorder?

How to check yourself – four steps in front of the mirror

The statements above ask about symptoms. Some things can also be checked yourself in two minutes. All you need is a mirror and your hands.

1. Does your mouth open straight? Open slowly as wide as possible in front of the mirror and watch the midline between your lower incisors. Does it shift to the side or follow a curve? In the Ahlers and Jakstat short screening, a deviation of more than 2 mm is considered abnormal.

2. How far does it open? Stack your index, middle, and ring fingers and insert them vertically between your incisors. If they don’t fit, the opening is rather small. Professionally, a distance of about 38 to 40 millimeters between the incisal edges is considered normal.

3. Does it pop or grind? Place your fingertips directly in front of your ears on the jaw joints and open and close several times. A popping, grinding, or crunching sound is often easier to feel under your fingers than to hear.

4. Are the jaw muscles tender to pressure? Palpate your temples with two fingers, then your cheeks below the cheekbones while gently biting down. If the pressure hurts or the muscle feels hard, this may indicate overload.

These points come from the Hamburg TMD short screening. It comprises six findings; two or more abnormal findings make TMD likely. What you palpate yourself does not replace this examination – it only tells you whether an appointment makes sense.

What Is TMD?

TMD stands for temporomandibular disorder – a dysfunction in the interaction between the temporomandibular joint, chewing muscles, and tooth contacts. Because the muscles in the head, neck, and shoulder area are connected, symptoms can also appear in places you wouldn’t immediately associate with the jaw. Learn more on our page about TMD pain therapy.

What the TMD self-assessment can do – and what it cannot

The TMD self-assessment asks about the signs that also play a role in the clinical short screening. It classifies your answers – nothing more. Whether a temporomandibular disorder is actually present can only be clarified clinically: by palpating the masticatory muscles, by checking the temporomandibular joint movement and the tooth contacts.

An unremarkable result does not rule out TMD. Symptoms change, and some things you don’t notice in yourself – nighttime grinding, for example, is often first noticed by others.

Conversely, abnormal does not automatically mean requiring treatment. Sounds in the temporomandibular joint are widespread and often have no disease value. Only when symptoms are added or mobility is restricted does this become a finding that justifies clarification.

For severe or persistent pain, a self-assessment is the wrong approach. Please have such symptoms examined directly instead of first classifying them yourself.