Does your jaw pop or click?

TMJ is the abbreviation for Temporal Mandibular Joint. It is the joint directly in front of your ear that is used by your body to open and close your mouth. It is, like most other joints in your body, made up of cartilage, fluid, bones, and muscles.. And just like any other joint in the body any piece to this puzzle can deteriorate, get misplaced, damaged, or have any other number of problems.

If any sort of damage does occur then pain, clicking, popping may result.

If you have had any of the above symptoms the best thing to do

is to see your dentist right away.

He/she needs to determine what is the cause of your TMJ discomfort and

what, if anything, can be done to solve the problem.

Dr. Ellis on Facebook

Dr. Ellis Website

What's wrong with your tongue?!

It's called geographic tongue.

Geographic tongue is a condition where the tissue of the tongue will vary in

appearance from one section of the tongue to another.

The location, size, color and duration of the variations is different from person to person

and can even change within the same person over time.

There is no real threat with geographic tongue. Most people with geographic

tongue don't even know they have it. All they know is that they have always

had this funnysection of their tongue that changes texture and color from time to time.

The only main side effect coincidental with geographic tongue is a heightened

sensitivity to spicy foods form time to time. These episodes will occur as

the spots of the geographic tongue go through their phase of appearing and

then disappearing.

Dr. Ellis on Facebook

Dr. Ellis Website

My Crown Just Fell off!!!

You are eating a meal and all of a sudden you feel something crunchy.

You search for the crunchy item with your tongue and pull the item out.

Its one of your crowns!

You don't know how it happened but it just came off.

First Rule: Do not panic.

Crowns can come off for several reasons.

Some of these reasons are very very easy to fix.

So just because your crown came off does not mean that its the end of the world.

First thing to do is to look into the crown.

If its empty then things are in good shape.

This means that the cement that holds the crown on simply broke loose and you just need to get it re-cemented.

If there is a bunch of stuff in the tooth then you may have a little more of a problem on your hands.

What is in the crown may be fragments of the tooth. If there are a lot of fragments then you may need to have a new crown made due to the fact that that one may not fit any longer.

So until you can get to the dentist to find out exactly which case is yours, what can you do?

Try to stick it back on.

If it fits snuggly then you may just be able to baby it until you get in to the dentist.

If it fits loosely then you can simply put a bit of toothpaste into it and then stick it back on.

The toothpaste will make up the difference in the fit of the crown and help keep it on.

Call your dentist ASAP and get his/her opinion.

Dr. Ellis on Facebook

Dr. Ellis Website

TMJ

TMJ is the abbreviation for Temporal Mandibular Joint. It is the joint directly in front of your ear that is used by your body to open and close your mouth. It is, like most other joints in your body, made up of cartilage, fluid, bones, and muscles.. And just like any other joint in the body any piece to this puzzle can deteriorate, get misplaced, damaged, or have any other number of problems.

If any sort of damage does occur then pain, clicking, popping may result.

If you have had any of the above symptoms the best thing to do

is to see your dentist right away.

He/she needs to determine what is the cause of your TMJ discomfort and

what, if anything, can be done to solve the problem.

Dr. Ellis on Facebook

Dr. Ellis Website