MOTOR VEHICLE TRAUMA

Must my head or face strike the inside of my car in a motor vehicle accident (MVA) for me to have a dislocated jaw joint or TMJ symptoms?

NO, YOUR HEAD NEED NOT STRIKE ANYTHING TO DISLOCATE YOUR JAW!

An overwhelming majority of patients that sustain whiplash injuries in motor vehicle accidents (MVA) also dislocated one or both temporomandibular joints at the same time without having impacting their face or head against the steering wheel, door column, windshield, or, other parts of their car. The lack of head/face impact and the absence of bruises, cuts, stitches, etc., is frequently used by insurance companies to deny claims from patients for TMJ treatment.

A recent study by Garcia, DDS and Arrington, MD performed MRI's on 164 TMJ's of 87 consecutive motor vehicle cervical whiplash patients "who had sustained no direct trauma to the face, head or mandible and had no TMJ complaints prior to the MVA" documented that 95% of the joints (156/194) showed TMJ abnormalities after the MVA, "significantly illustrating the proximate relationship between cervical whiplash and TMJ injuries".

A similar MRI study by P. D. Pressman, MD, et.al. on 33 consecutive symptomatic patients who had suffered whiplash from rear-end collisions with "no direct trauma to the jaw, mouth, head or face, due to the accident and no prior history of TMJ dysfunction" showed that 88% (29/33) "had some type of TMJ abnormality related to whiplash injury..."

The medical and dental professional literature, published in peer reviewed journals, supports the position that your head or face does not have to be struck for you to sustain a TMJ injury in a motor vehicle accident.

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