A couple of days ago, is singing at karaoke, Lilly suddenly face a change, hand on the chin issued a “ah”. It turned out that her jaw was dislocated, and she couldn’t even speak at once. The last time was at a friend’s dinner party, she was laughing and suddenly suffered this nightmarish moment. When it comes to dislocated jaws, many people are aware of this disease from the movie “The Nine Sesame Officers” starring Stephen Chow. In real life, there are many people who are troubled by dislocated jaws, and some patients even yawn and their jaws will “fall off”. What exactly is a dislocated jaw all about? Why do some people have frequent recurrences after a dislocation? What can be done to cure it completely? A dislocated jaw or “dropped jaw” as it is commonly called in folklore is medically known as a dislocation of the temporomandibular joint. The TMJ is composed of the condyle and the joint fossa, and is one of the most delicate joints in the human body, which is used for speaking, eating, and any movement of opening the mouth. “TMJ dislocation occurs when the condyle slips out of the joint socket and cannot reset itself after we laugh, cough violently or open our mouth for a long time.” There are three types of TMJ dislocations: 1. Acute anterior dislocation: It occurs in women. Patients show an inability to close their mouths, and if the dislocation is bilateral, the patient will also have slurred speech, salivary outflow, and pain in the joint area and masticatory muscles; 2. Recurrent dislocation: symptoms of acute anterior dislocation occur repeatedly, and patients are afraid to open their mouths wide. Recurrent dislocation is easier to reset, and some patients can even use their own hands to hold their jaw back at home. This kind of dislocation is mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly people, or patients who are not treated thoroughly after one dislocation. Recurrence is mainly related to the relaxation of the joint capsule and joint ligaments; 3. Obsolete dislocation: The clinical manifestations are similar to acute anterior dislocation, but there is no obvious pain in the temporomandibular joint and masticatory muscles, the jaw has a certain degree of mobility, and the opening and closing of the mouth can be carried out. In terms of treatment, acute dislocations can generally be reset by manipulation. “But after the reset, the jaw should be fixed with a special bandage, and do not make big mouth opening movements for two weeks to avoid another dislocation, otherwise it will easily become a recurrent dislocation.” Zhang Qingbin stressed that he has met some patients who reset themselves after dislocation, did not fix it after reset, and did not pay attention to mouth opening and other movements in life, which resulted in easy recurrence. There are three treatments for recurrent TMJ dislocation: one is injection therapy, which injects reinforcing agents into the joint capsule to make the capsule fibrous and no longer loose; the second is minimally invasive arthroscopy, in which a needle is inserted in front of the patient’s ear, followed by plasma vaporization and thermal coagulation therapy, which shrinks the joint capsule and joint ligaments through heating. The third is open surgical treatment, such as joint capsule and ligament reinforcement, joint nodule resection, and joint nodule augmentation. Currently, the second method is the most commonly used in clinical practice and has the best treatment effect. When encountering TMJ dislocation, it is best to go to the temporomandibular joint department of a specialized dental hospital for standardized treatment.