Jaw pain the night guard didn’t fix?
If you’ve worn a night guard, had your bite adjusted, done the jaw exercises, been told to manage your stress, and your jaw still clicks, aches, and locks up, there may be a piece nobody checked: your upper neck.
15 minutes to find out if we can help your jaw pain.
Sound like you?
People who come to us with jaw problems usually describe a combination of the following symptoms.
Maybe some of these sound familiar?
- Your jaw clicks, pops, or grinds when you open your mouth
- It hurts to chew, and some foods are off the table entirely
- Your jaw feels tight or locked, especially in the morning
- You get headaches at your temples or behind your eyes
- Your ears feel full or plugged, and nothing the doctor found explains it
- Your neck and shoulders are often tight, and you’ve stopped thinking that’s related
- You’ve been told you clench or grind at night, and the night guard hasn’t changed much
- You’ve been passed between your dentist, your doctor, and maybe a specialist, and nobody has looked at your neck
If several of these sound familiar, there’s a reason. Your jaw and the top of your neck are not separate systems.
↓ Watch: Dr. Jason Gonzales explains how the jaw and upper neck are connected, and how upper cervical care approaches TMJ tension. ↓
The jaw & neck connection
Your jaw and the top of your neck are wired into the same relay station in the brainstem. Sensory nerves from the jaw and face travel down and converge with sensory nerves from C1, C2, and C3, the top three bones in your neck. That shared relay is called the trigeminocervical nucleus.
Because those signals share a pathway, the brain cannot always tell where a signal started. A problem in the upper neck can be felt as jaw pain. A problem in the jaw can be felt as neck pain. And a problem in one place can drive tension and dysfunction in the other.
A 2025 scoping review in the Journal of Oral & Facial Pain and Headache mapped 83 studies on this pathway and found the connection between the jaw, head, and neck runs in both directions.
This isn’t just theory
Researchers have measured it. In one study, every single patient with a jaw disorder tested positive for restricted movement at the very top of the neck, at C1 and C2, also called the atlas and axis. Not one person in the healthy control group did.
That’s the exact segment we work on.
And it runs the other way too. In another study, patients with neck pain and no jaw pain at all were treated only at the neck. Their jaw function improved anyway. Their jaws were already compensating; they just hadn’t started hurting yet.
The bigger picture
The upper neck is not just a hinge. It’s the place where your spine meets your skull, and it’s densely wired into the part of your nervous system that regulates fight or flight and rest and digest.
When C1 and C2 are fixated, that system can get stuck in fight or flight. This is called sympathetic dominance. Muscles stay tight. Clenching gets worse. The jaw takes the load.
That’s why the night guard is a reasonable idea that doesn’t go far enough. It protects your teeth from the clenching. It doesn’t address why you’re clenching.
What we do differently
Most jaw care starts with an assumption: the problem is in the jaw. So the treatment goes to the jaw. A guard, a splint, a bite adjustment, exercises for the masseter.
We don’t assume anything. We test first.
A protocol, not a guess
Before we touch you, we find out whether the top of your neck is part of the problem:
- Thermography, to measure whether your nervous system is stuck in fight or flight
- Biomechanical x-rays of the upper cervical spine, read by a radiologist
- A clinical exam, including upper cervical range of motion, head carriage, muscle tension, and tenderness at the base of the skull
If the testing says your upper neck is fixated, we can tell you that. If it says it isn’t, we can tell you that too, and you won’t spend money finding out the slow way.
Less interference, not more intervention
We are not adding another appliance to your jaw. We are not adding another exercise to your list.
We use one precise adjustment to the upper cervical spine, and then we leave it alone. No twisting. No cracking. No adjusting your jaw. When the adjustment holds, we don’t repeat it, because repeating an adjustment that’s already holding does nothing but interfere.
Your body does the work. Our job is to remove what’s in the way and then get out of the way.
Putting it all together
No single test decides anything. We put the thermography, the x-rays, and the exam side by side. If they agree that your upper neck is fixated, we tell you what care would look like and what it would cost, and you decide.
If they don’t agree, we tell you that, and we don’t take you on as a patient.
Ready to find out if this is what’s behind your jaw pain?
What testing looks like
Everything starts with measurement. Here’s what that means.
Thermography
Thermography is a test that measures your autonomic nervous system: the same part that turns fight or flight on and off. Thermography testing can show us if your system is adapting or stuck. Being stuck in fight or flight is called sympathetic dominance.
This is the free screening. It takes about 15 minutes, and it tells us whether there’s anything here worth pursuing.
Biomechanical x-rays
If the thermography suggests your system is stuck, the next step is imaging. These are not the x-rays you’ve had before. They’re taken at specific angles designed to measure how your atlas and axis sit relative to your skull and to each other.
Every set is read by a radiologist. We don’t grade our own work.
Clinical exam
We check upper cervical range of motion, head carriage and posture, muscle tension, and tenderness at the base of the skull. In jaw cases we pay particular attention to rotation at C1 and C2, since that’s where the restriction shows up in the research.
Will this work for you?
Honest answer: sometimes yes, sometimes no. Here’s how to tell which one you might be.
It’s most likely to help if…
- Your jaw problem has lasted months or years, not days
- Your neck is tight, stiff, or painful, even if you never connected it to your jaw
- You get headaches at your temples or behind your eyes along with the jaw pain
- You’ve had a head or neck injury at some point: a car accident, a fall, a concussion, a hard hit in sports, even years ago
- The night guard, the bite work, and the jaw exercises have all been tried and none of it fully held
- Nobody has ever examined the top of your neck
We need to pause if…
We are not dentists, and we don’t do dental work. If you haven’t been evaluated by a dentist for your jaw, start there. Some jaw problems are dental problems: a cracked tooth, an abscess, a genuine structural problem inside the joint. Those need a dentist, and we’re not a substitute for one.
We also need you to see a doctor first if you have:
- Jaw pain that came on suddenly with chest pain, shortness of breath, or arm pain. Get emergency care, since jaw pain can be a heart symptom.
- A jaw that locks fully shut or fully open and won’t move
- Recent trauma to the face or jaw, or a suspected fracture
- Swelling, fever, or signs of infection
No magic bullets
We can’t promise your jaw pain will disappear. Nobody can, and if a clinic tells you they can, be skeptical. We won’t.
What we can promise is that you’ll know within one visit whether your upper neck is part of the problem, and we’ll tell you the truth either way. If it isn’t, we’ll say so, and we won’t sell you care you don’t need.
Find out if we can help your jaw pain
Fifteen minutes, no cost, no pressure. Just answers.