Right jaw pain: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What right jaw pain is

Right jaw pain is pain in the right side of the jaw: the bone, the chewing muscles, or the right temporomandibular joint in front of the ear. The commonest cause is a temporomandibular disorder (TMD), which often favours one side. Chewing mostly on the right, for example to spare a sore tooth on the left, sleeping on that side, chewing gum, biting your nails, or clenching during concentration can all load one joint more than the other. TMD brings aching in the jaw and cheek, pain near the ear, clicking or popping, and a jaw that is stiff to open.

Other one-sided causes include a cracked or decayed tooth, a dental abscess, an impacted wisdom tooth in the lower right jaw, sinusitis behind the upper teeth, and an ear infection. A salivary gland in front of the ear or under the jaw can swell and hurt, especially at mealtimes, when a small stone blocks it. Trigeminal neuralgia, with sudden stabbing or electric-shock pains on one side of the face, affects the right side a little more often than the left.

Heart pain is classically described on the left, but it can spread to either side of the jaw. Right jaw pain with chest pressure, breathlessness, sweating, nausea or pain in an arm needs emergency help: call 999 in the UK, 911 in the US or 112 in the EU. Over 50, pain in the jaw muscles when chewing with a new temple headache can be giant cell arteritis and needs same-day care.

Most TMD settles with soft food, warmth, gentle exercises, relaxation, simple painkillers and sometimes a night guard from a dentist. The main page on jaw pain covers the condition as a whole.

The emotional meaning of right jaw pain

Spiritually, the jaws stand for your inner power. They let you take in reality, choose what you open up to, assert yourself and speak the truth. Because the two jaws must press against each other to work, they also represent how you face struggle and opposition. In the map of the left and right sides of the body, the right side carries the active, masculine principle, in women as much as in men: action, decisions, speech, authority, work, and the men in your life. On the right, the jaw tends to hold the words that would change something.

Anger behind a forced smile

Jaw trouble is read as appearing when you clench to keep down the energy of anger, stubbornness, or even an unconscious wish to get your own back. Things are not going the way you want, at work or in a project, and rage rises. You smile, you stay professional, and the jaw takes the strain. When the right jaw aches, the question may be whom you would like to bite, and what you are protecting by not doing it.

The fear of contradicting authority

A jaw joint that clicks or cracks is linked to the fear of contradicting others, above all people in authority. On the right, this is often a boss, a client, an institution, a father. You avoid confrontation, swallow the objection, and hold on to an authority outside yourself instead of your own. A sense of powerlessness can follow, and with it a feeling of inferiority or jealousy towards those who seem to speak freely.

Thinking one thing, saying another

When the joint itself is out of line, the question is whether there is a gap between what you think and what you dare to say openly. On the right, that gap often opens between duty and desire: what you must do and what you would like to do. Your working life may have turned out far from the one you dreamed of, bringing disappointment and doubt that you keep to yourself. The jaw holds both versions at once.

Rushing ahead

The right side is the side of decisions. A jaw injury, once treated, is linked to a tendency to rush things and push decisions through. You may feel hurried by life and by others, when part of you is the one that wants to go too fast. The right jaw may ask which decision would be better for one more day of thought.

The upper jaw and the father

The upper jaw is linked to your relationship with your father, the lower jaw to your mother. On the right, the masculine side is partly learnt by watching your father, so you may have inherited his way of speaking, or of not speaking. Jaws that are read as too narrow are linked to a strong pressure to be the best, with the intellect constantly fed and the emotional side left hungry. For a man, the tension may touch rivalry. For a woman, it may touch her working life and the roles she wants to step out of.

The other side

Left jaw pain is linked to feelings held behind the teeth: sorrow, tenderness, a cry held in at home, and the relationship with the mother. The right jaw asks which firm sentence you keep back, the left which feeling you swallow. The page on jaw pain brings both together.

A gentler way to hold it

• Catch the clench. When your jaw tightens at work, note what you were about to say.
• Write the sentence. Put the disagreement you have not voiced into one clear, respectful line.
• Disagree and stay respectful. You can contradict someone above you without attacking them.
• Close one gap. Choose one place where what you think and what you say differ, and bring them a step closer.
• Slow one decision down. Give it a day longer than you planned.
• Feed the other side. If your mind is always working, give your feelings some time too.
• Rest the jaw. Soft food, warmth and unclenching exercises help the muscles let go.