As a firefighter I do everything from fight grass fires, house fires, rubbish fires, car fires, anything that can catch on fire weâd be called for it. We go to medical calls, any time ambulances are called out we go to it. We do everything from heart attacks to small injuries to car wrecks.
I had a rear molar worked on 2 weeks ago, and now I can't open my jaw enough to place anything larger that my pincky finger into it. Went to the oral surgeon yesterday, he told me I had trismus, caused by a spasm in my muscle of the jaw due to the needle from the novacain. His suggestion to increase how far my mouth will open, start with 7 tongue depressors, insert between my teeth, and add a new one everyday until I can get 27 in there.
Trismus is a more difficult TMJ symptom to diagnose accurately. It is when you can't open your mouth very far. The opening can be anywhere from 5 mm to 32 mm usually. Trismus is a muscle Spasm that doesn't allow you mouth to open very far. It can go away as fast as it came, or it may take a month or two to unspasm. This can also be called Lock Jaw. But, in my office, a Locked Jaw is when the disc is displaced and binds up your jaw in a way that you cannot open it unless the disc is in place again, or slipping or translating freely which does allow opening of the jaw.