About every month I get pain at the right, jaw joint when I chew. The pain is extremely intense and lasts about 6-10 seconds. The pain is localized to right in front of the ear lobe and then down to behind the lobe. The pain is not in my ear, it is distinctly my jaw and the "attack" lasts about a half day to a day.

Also, when this happened yesterday I found out that the pain occurs w/out the jaw opening if it is introduced to something very cold. I drank a slurpy thinking that I was safe not chewing and the jolting pain came :( I was so thirsty that I had to try to drink so I tried to warm the drink up in my mouth before I swallowed and that seemed to work a bit. Once my mouth was use to the temperature I had no problem drinking it. My "attack" was still going on but wasn't affected by the cold anymore.

Does any of this make sense to anyone?

I'm afraid if I go to my doctor that they will be dumbfounded since my "attack" isn't occurring today.