I do and really bad tingling too.

MS,

Yes.

The fifth cranial nerve, called the Trigeminal Nerve, is the nerve that innervates most of the face.. Almost all of the muscles involved with movement of your jaw and jaw joints are innervated by CN 5.

When your bite is off, it can cause the lower jaw to go to a position which "pinches" CN 5 and then you can get numbness in the area innervated by the part of the nerve that is pinched.

Go to google, click on images and type into the search, Cranial Nerve Five Dermatomes. A dermatome is an area that is innervated by a specific nerve. CN 5 is depicted as the roman numeral V. It has three branches CN V.1, CN V.2 and CN V.3. If you search through the pictures on google, you should see one that has a face with three different colored areas, each color representing the surface area that is innervated by that division of the Trigeminal Nerve.

One of colored areas should correlate to the area on your face that you feel numb, That is the division of CN V that has been affected by your improperly positioned lower jaw because your bite is off.

You may have TN, or Trigmeminal Neuralgia, which is pinching of the Trigeminal Nerve, usually by the lower jaw or jaw joints.

Hope that helps,

Doctor T
Scott L. Tamura DMD, LVIF
Official Daily Strenght TMJ Expert

ps. Check out my first DS Blog post this Monday October 3rd.

Hi Doctor T..............thanks for the great explanation. I get tingling in my face and sometimes an electric buzz like feeling but it's ONLY when my muscles are cramped up, so I really don't think I have TN....also mine does not hurt, just feels a bit weird. BUT I'm thinking if I don't get help soon then it could turn out worse. I really appreciated your explanation though, it helps me to also understand what is going on.

Kris,

I believe (but do not know without a full examination of you) that you actually have a "Mechanical Entrapment Neuropothy". This is when a nerve is pinched by either a muscle or between two bones. You will get the numbness or tingling as you describe, but it would not be classified as Trigeminal Neuralgia because one of the halmarks of that diagnosis is Severe Pain.

If you do not have severe pain, you probably don't have TN.

Mostly this is medical nomenclature, but if you see a doc, you don't want to give them a wrong diagnosis durring an intake.

Doctor T
Official DS TMJ Expert