New Jersey woman, 21, gets her jaw stuck wide open after YAWNING too hard – and team of ER doctors have to ‘manually’ shut it

One woman yawned so hard that her jaw physically locked, sending her to the emergency room where doctors had to manually close the jaw.

Jenna Sinatra, 21, from New Jersey, suffered the freak accident this week, just days before her birthday, and documented her trip to the hospital in a now-viral TikTok video.

Doctors told her she dislocated her jaw, leaving the joints responsible for opening and closing her mouth locked in place. This prevented her from closing her mouth completely.

The injury, which lasted several hours, took doctors four hours to repair by giving her muscle relaxing drugs and ‘pushing’ her jaw back together.

“Only something like this would happen to me,” she wrote in the caption of the video, which has been viewed 7.4 million times.

Jenna Sinatra, 21, posted a series of TikTok videos after her jaw got stuck open from yawning. It took doctors four hours to ‘manually’ close her mouth

Ms. Sinatra, an influencer with 2.3 million TikTok followers, had her jaw dropped just days before her 21st birthday

Dr. Anthony Youn, a plastic surgeon in Michigan, stitched Ms. Sinatra’s video and described the phenomenon as “open lock,” which causes the jaw to “literally stay open.”

“This is very rare, but when it does happen, it often happens after someone makes a big yawn,” he said in his response, which has been viewed 3.2 million times.

In Mrs. Sinatra’s case, her jaw became dislocated, which means two bones in one of your joints disintegrate.

In this case, the joints connecting Ms. Sinatra’s jaw and skull have separated.

It’s unclear what exactly caused Mrs. Sinatra’s yawn to go wrong, but major risk factors include double-jointed joints, teeth grinding or arthritis.

The condition is known medically as a TMJ disorder, which involves the joints that connect the jawbone to the skull, almost like sliding hinges that allow you to open and close your mouth.

Although most people with this problem have lockjaw, which causes the mouth to remain closed, in “rare” cases, TMJ injuries can cause the mouth to hang open.

An estimated five to twelve percent of Americans have had their jaw locked at some point, although it is unclear how many of these cases had their jaw locked open.

Previous jaw injuries, arthritis, and teeth grinding or clenching have been shown to increase the risk of TMJ disorders.

After several hours of home remedies, Ms. Sinatra eventually had to go to the hospital, where doctors discovered that the yawning had dislocated her jaw.

Dr. Anthony Youn, a plastic surgeon in Michigan, described the phenomenon as “open lock,” which often happens after yawning. He noted that her jaw could be dislocated due to a TMJ disorder

Dr. Youn said an open lock like Ms. Sinatra’s is usually treated with muscle relaxant medications and “manual adjustment.”

Mrs. Sinatra did not specify which medications she was given, but common muscle relaxants include carisoprodol (Soma), methocarbamol (Robaxin), and tizanidine (Zanaflex).

This may involve massaging the joints, applying heat or ice to them, loosening the muscles with injections, or using Botox. These help the joints become looser and less stiff, allowing them to come back together.

Ms. Sinatra eventually recovered from an open lock, although she posted videos of her having to wear bandages around her entire head for her birthday dinner.