Cracking sounds in my jaw

[Sakura4]

Sometimes when I'm eating my jaw cracks really loudly in the side of my mouth. It's only happened a couple of times and not very often and it doesnt hurt too much just a little bit when I open my mouth wide. But now I'm okay, there's no pain and even when there was, there was very little. And sometimes when I move my jaw I think I can hear some sort of a grating sound from the side of my mouth. What does it mean?

[jackie722]

Sounds like my jaw....could be a lack of calcium etc....I actually got mine from having hypocalcemia or something... my body n face went into a spasm as the muscles started eating itself....and my jaw went stiff shut....and I was grinding my teeth and couldn't open it...It was pretty SCARY......but this happened like in 1999....and ever since then ....it still makes a crack noise when I open it wide...

[Sakura4]

Oh. That sounds bad. It doesn't happen very often. My friend told me that her sister had it and she went to get an MRI but everything was absolutely fine so I'm not sure what to do but I'll definitely have it checked out. Thanks for your reply.

[Red_Star]

You have symptoms of temporomandibular joint dysfunction - TMJ dysfunction. Symptoms can include pain in the chewing muscles or jaw joint; limited movement or locking of the jaw; clicking, popping, or grating sounds when opening your mouth; trouble chewing to name a few. TMJ dysfunction can be caused by conditions including injury, a bad bite, stress, anxiety, hypothyroidism, magnesium deficiency.