#193 Arm/Hand/Finger Tingling and Numbness and TMD

I have learned a lot in the 50+ years I have been treating patients with TMD.  Looking back, I have learned more about the disease and how to treat it properly by listening to my patients as they describe the symptoms and the impact these symptoms have on their life.  I have discussed many times how my TMD patients described how placing a finger, pencil eraser, a piece of cloth, between their front teeth made it feel better. This led me in the proper direction when I did the research to figure out this disease.  This direction ultimately led to the creation of the Urbanek Device and Protocol. 

They also led me to discover one of the most unusual and interesting symptoms of TMD, a symptom I had never encountered before, but led to investigate by my patients. 

One morning while discussing with a patient what percentage of her symptoms were decreased after the first 2 months of using the Urbanek Device, she stated the following: “Thanks, my headaches and neck pains are now gone, but does this have anything to do with my hand and finger tingling and numbness, because those symptoms have gone away too?”  I told her I had never heard of that symptom being associated with TMD and did not encourage her to associate this symptom with TMD but filed the comment away somewhere in my brain.  About 2 months later a second patient made a similar comment, and about 6 months after that a third patient asked me about the arm and hand numbness that had diminished while being treated. 

This sent me back to the basics and back to the books to try and figure out how in the world decreasing inflammation in the TMJ would cause arm, hand, and finger tingling and numbness to decrease.  Once I pulled out my copy of Gray’s Anatomy the answer immediately came into view.  I was looking over a diagram of the nerves that innervate the arm and fingers and realized the Brachial Plexus which supply the arm, hand, and fingers can be squeezed by the muscles of the side of the neck when these muscles are stimulated to contract continuously to hold the whole head motionless when attempting to hold the lower jaw motionless, in order to get the TMJ to heal.  Neck pain is the second most common symptoms of TMD and when the neck muscles get the signal form the sympathetic nerves of the autonomic nervous system to tighten, the nerves of the Brachial Plexus are squeezed causing arm, hand, finger tingling, pain, or numbness.   

If you have some of the standard symptoms of TMD, like headache, earache, neck pain, upper back and shoulder pain and tightness, tinnitus, subjective hearing loss, vertigo, and various types of jaw locking, don’t be surprised if your arm, hand, or finger tingling and numbness decreases and the other