Why Do Jaws Pop?

Why do Jaws pop? It is difficult and almost impossible for your jaw to pop when you are idle and have not engaged any into physical activity. Does this mean that jaw popping is related to movements and strains? A number of reasons can be attributed to why jaws pop but the most basic layman explanation is tied down to the simple logic of joint movement.

Some people stand on the fact that several joints on the body, such as those of the neck and fingers, do pop when we stretch or twist them to a certain extent and use it as a comparison tool to explain why our jaws pop. In layman terms, our jaws pop when the joints between the skull and the jaws are stretched.

The question “why do jaws pop?” is one that has been deliberated on even by practitioners in the medicine field. Medical experts declare that during jaw muscle and joint movements during activities like chewing due to a syndrome called temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome. Factors that cause trauma directly to the jaws, such as rheumatoid arthritis, intra-articular disc derangement and osteoarthritis, have been noticed to be the same factors giving rise to syndrome. The popping sound itself originates from the temporomandibular joint, abbreviated TMJ.
Obviously, it is not just regular chewing or jaw muscle activities that causes jaws to pop. Otherwise, everyone on earth would experience it. It usually happens as a result of too much strain during the mouth/jaw activity. Let’s take chewing as an example. The pressure exerted by your jaws on the joints during biting must be equally distributed over the joints. If such distribution is unequal, maybe as a result of a damaged and misaligned TMJ resulting from crooked teeth, the jaw’s muscle will have to do extra work for proper alignment to be achieved thereby leading to a popping sound. Why do jaws pop? It is important to know the answer to this question so as to better understand how our jaw muscles and joints work.