Tinnitus is common with prevalence rates of 10-20%. A subtype of subjective tinnitus is called somatosensory tinnitus. This is when the somatosensory systems, usually the neck and/or jaw, is one of the major influencing factors of modulating the perception of sound.

You can describe the sounds as ranging from hissing, sizzling, to actual ringing. When there is a relationship between the jaw and tinnitus, patients normally notice a correlation with oral parafunctions (e.g., bruxism, excessive gum chewing, lip or fingernail biting), chewing, yawning or jaw movements.

Medically, we don’t just talk about the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) in itself when dealing with pain disorders of the jaw. The larger term “temporomandibular disorders (TMD)” encompasses not just the joint but also the muscles of mastication, lumping TMJ into this category.

In fact,  there is a large correlation between TMD and tinnitus. Prevalence studies show that tinnitus occurs in 30% to 64% of patients with TMD, suggests that TMD and tinnitus are highly intertwined.  Additionally, a recent study just showed a strong link indicating that TMJ problems largely contribute to tinnitus severity (Edvall et al 2020).

Two recent systematic reviews confirmed the association between tinnitus and TMJ disorders, with the majority of the identified studies reporting a significant link between the two conditions. (Bousema et al., 2018; Mottaghi et al., 2019).

More often than not, if you are having tinnitus with some form of somatosensory subtype, you will usually have TMD dysfunction or pain.

Conclusion

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