Ice and or heat packs may help them as well as no wide opening or prolonged opening of the mouth, a soft diet, no heavy chewing, anti-inflamatory meds or NSAIDs. Sometimes its not that a muscle actually has a knot per se but is basically over worked and is therefore has become over developed - more so where an entire area seems larger, swollen or firmer (if not hard). Obviously aggravating or over untilizing the jaws and surrounding msucles will affect their ability to recover and/or return to a normal state. Also some people do see improvement thru other alternative treatments such as accupuncture, PT therapy which can include massage therapy, tens unit, ultra sound, etc as well as splint therapy.