Post: #1

Anybody have TMJ? Its basically where your cheek muscles clinch and you often grind your teeth. What do you do to reduce clenching pain? Anyway to stop ear popping? I'm seeing a doctor for it, but its not fully under control.

Post: #2

Technically, you have TMJD, temporomandibular joint disorder/dysfunction.

Try wearing a mouthguard at night.

Get in the habit of holding your teeth some distance apart. Having your teeth in contact is not the resting position of the jaw.

Take an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen.

What you are hearing is probably not actually ears popping in the sense of pressure equalization. It is probably the meniscus the next to the ear.

I am not a doctor but had TMD for years and fixed it by changing habits.

Post: #3

It hasn't come back for you?

I do have a mouthguard I wear at night and sometimes during the day.

Post: #4

400mg of Magnesium before bed has helped reduce clenching pain and tension.

Post: #5

(10-15-2016 04:08 PM)kbell Wrote:  It hasn't come back for you?

I do have a mouthguard I wear at night and sometimes during the day.

Still have mild pain sometimes, but not as bad as it used to be. I was able to stop the trend of it getting worse, and then after about a year the pain started to subside.

There are surgical remedies, but I very strongly recommend against surgery that is unnecessary if the problem can be fixed through a lifestyle change. Are you under high stress? Drinking a lot? You shouldn't be clenching your teeth for no reason while you're awake.

Post: #6

Always under stress due to working in medical field. I also have a mal formed bite were my front teeth don't touch. So the pressure tends to be on the sides of the face.

I found something that helps quite a bit. A heating bad attached to my face with a neck pillow. Haven't found a more elegant solution, but it gets the job done. Also lying on a heating pad for each side helps.

I ordered 3 different types of magnesium to see which helps most for TMJ without a laxative effect. I'm aiming for 500-600 mg a day from previous 400 mg.

Post: #7

Magnesium doesn't do damn thing. I would look into getting arthocentesis of the jaw.

Post: #8

I started experiencing this problem b/c of some fillings i recently had. My case may be a bit different b/c of this. Now, when I experience this pain I swish some cayenne pepper with warm water in my mouth. It burns like hell but within minutes the TMJ and related ear pain subside. Again, the origin of my pain may be from the mouth so its different, but it only hurts a little to try this.

Post: #9

(10-16-2016 03:31 PM)kbell Wrote:  Always under stress due to working in medical field. I also have a mal formed bite were my front teeth don't touch. So the pressure tends to be on the sides of the face.

I found something that helps quite a bit. A heating bad attached to my face with a neck pillow. Haven't found a more elegant solution, but it gets the job done. Also lying on a heating pad for each side helps.

I ordered 3 different types of magnesium to see which helps most for TMJ without a laxative effect. I'm aiming for 500-600 mg a day from previous 400 mg.

In the short term to gain relief, you can have an NTI nightguard made. This is different from the standard full coverage nightguard in that it fits over your two central incisors and has an acrylic stop which contacts your lower incisors only. This leaves your molars and canines hanging without contact. This is significant because the jaw muscles only contract when the molars and canines are contacting. If your grinding your teeth all night, you will wake up in the morning with some serious jaw pain, headaches etc due to the contraction of the masseter and temporalis muscles all night. The NTI really does work well to relieve all that jaw muscle contraction and the resultant pain.

In the long term, once the NTI has brought some of the symptoms under control, you should consider orthodontic treatment to move your teeth into the correct biting relationship which will help to fix your tmj issue. You said you have an open bite on your front teeth and this can definitely cause tmj issues along with your grinding. Also addressing the stress in your life is important to do. Much easier said than done, I know. Hope that helps.

Post: #10

Tmj and teeth grinding suck. I remember breaking down into tears because of the pain and feeling hopeless because I already had a gaurd made by the dentist.

I feel like tmj even impacted me socially because I'd do weird shit with my jaw and feel awkward talking to people just because my jaw felt so tight some times.

Overall I think mine may have been caused by general anxiety, stress, anger and self esteem issues because now that I'm coming of age ,don't have acne, look good, feel confident,get girls,have a good social circle, etc I don't ever worry about my gaurd and never experience jaw pain any more. If you guys struggle with teeth grinding and it's causing you pain seriously consider working on your life style as a possible way to solve the issue. I use to think the stress theory is bullshit but it's not hard to see why the body would clench and grind the teeth as a reaction to stress or anger.

Other than that some helpful tips I learned:
-stay away from gum. This is just gonna get those same muscles more tight and shortened.
-Consider smoking pot just before bed to help you relax. I found that smoking weed helps with the symptoms such as pain and tightness even if you don't light up every night.

Post: #11

Saw the doctor today. Had 6 cortesone shots in my cheeks. Very painful. 3 per side. Also upped the medication dosage. So hopefully this will get things quieted down.

Post: #12

Just thought I'd bump this thread since I'm in the midst of a (seemingly) really bad episode of this, the first one I've ever had in my life. No idea what caused it. It's frustrating and scary at the same time.

Any other thoughts or tips from those who have experienced this? I just spoke with a forum member who posted earlier in this thread and he gave me some good advice - ibuprofen, ice application, and soft diet for a bit. I'll give it a try for the weekend and hopefully the pain will subside, but man....this really, really sucks.

Post: #13

Any life changes? High stress? It hit me once when I was really stressed at work, and chewing tons of gum. Took like a month to get better. It is hard to sleep, you have to sleep on your back looking straight up, you can't sleep on your side because it hurts too much. Take it easy with food and chewing. If you have a blender put it to good use.

Reduce stress, and don't chew gum. It has never come back for me, but YMMV.

Post: #14

See a periodontist or at least a dentist to recommend you to a TMJ specialist. Get a night splint or mouth guard made as soon a possible. That is the biggest thing along with muscle relaxers which got it under control. I tend to clench so I have to work against that by keeping my teeth slightly open most of the time. Also I learned a few jaw stretches from a chiropractor which help ease the muscle spasms. Heat helps more in my case since its muscle caused.

Post: #15

Thanks for the good suggestions, frozen-ace and kbell. I'm thinking this is happening to me for two main reasons -

1) Stress, which is probably causing me to grind my teeth without me realizing it, which led me to....

2) Gum chewing. I recently developed a (bad) habit of chewing gum all the time throughout the day and I'm 99.9% sure this (and stress) are the reasons this is happening tome right now. I never chewed gum regularly before in my life until the past couple of weeks, so I feel like this has to be related.

It's still pretty painful right now when I chew/eat, but you've given me some good suggestions and hope (along with SamuelBRoberts) that this won't last a long time.

I contacted my dentist this weekend since I happen to be friends with him, and we may try a muscle relaxer to see if it helps. Will report back.

Post: #16

^^ that will do it, looks like you have identified the source. Your jaw is really a complex set of connections and muscles, and you take it for granted until the day it hurts like a bitch to move your mouth. Drop the gum ASAP (I still hardly ever chew gum). That is step 1 and will put you on the path to recovery.

As far as the stress, that's harder to manage. When I was in the situation, dropping the gum was enough to make it go away, I was never able to completely eliminate stress.

First week is the worst, second week gets better, third week you can still feel it but it's not impacting your life, 4 weeks it will all be behind you. After I quit gum it never returned.

Post: #17

Interesting to see so many RVF members with TMD. I've had problems most of my adult life, and have gone through the whole regime of standard treatments with varying degree of success. Even after the actual joint dysfunction was fixed through orthodontics I still have issues with clenching and general muscle pain in the TMJ and neck. Part of the problem is that your body learns to function in a maladjusted way, and it's very hard to re-train muscle movements once the bad habits are ingrained.

If you can find one in your area, I would highly recommend seeing an Osteopath to investigate any alignment issues that may be contributing to your dysfunction. Look for someone with the DOMP (Diploma of Osteopathy Manual Practitioner) or DOMTP (Diploma in Osteopathic Manual Therapy Practice) designations. They're a little like physiotherapists or chiropractors except they focus on body alignment, positioning and movement disorders in general.

I also found that posture improvement helped, as did exercises to strength my back and core muscles. Relaxation techniques such as meditation or yoga can help with the stress aspect.

Post: #18

Forgot to mention, but the neck stretches in my sig will help with TMJ.

Post: #19

See a chiropractor and change up your diet. I used to eat a lot of meat, but now I stay away and I eat lots of vegetables and cashews/sunflower seeds, popcorn, and some fish. I also eat candy. Everyone says candy is bad, but I find it to be a better alternative to alcohol. Alcohol is probably the worst thing you can drink during your tmj.

Post: #20

Vegetables, nuts, seeds, and candy for TMJ patients?

Dude, what the hell?

Post: #21

Dropping an update - It has been two weeks since I posted about my TMJ pain, and it has pretty much completely vanished. The first week was fairly painful, as any type of chewing caused significant discomfort on the right side of my jaw. I started to think this was going to be a long term problem as nothing seemed to be helpful (anti-inflammatory drugs, ice, heat, muscle relaxers, etc.). Gradually, the pain started to get weaker and weaker throughout this past week, and while I'm still being a bit careful about what I eat, how I chew, etc....it seems to be under control.

It was definitely my gum chewing that caused this. I grind my teeth (sometimes) when stressed, but I haven't had a piece of gum since this started and the pain finally went away. I'm probably going to get a mouth guard from Walgreen's to potentially wear at night as a precaution, but I'll definitely never regularly chew gum again.

Thank you to everyone for the helpful thoughts and advice earlier in the thread. I also have to echo SBR from the post above - while this was going on, I couldn't even fathom trying to eat something like nuts, seeds, or hard candy. Anything that required even a small amount of chewing force was extremely painful on my jaw as well as psychologically frustrating/scary. Hopefully this won't ever come back, as it sure sucks when it happens to you.

Post: #22

Anyone have a jaw that occasionally clicks on one side with no or minimal pain (sometimes a headache that could be caused by the jaw clicking)? Is it possible to fix this? It seems like my jaw opens up faster on one side than the other (unevenly) if I try to fully open my jaw.

Thinking TMJ is the cause from getting impacted wisdom teeth removed a while ago but all doctors have told me is not to worry until it becomes painful. But I'd rather fix this before that happens.

Post: #23

Often when they remove wisdom teeth they crank open your jaw and cause damage. I'd try to seek out a dentist, osteopath or other practitioner who has expertise in TMJ issues or craniofascial pain in your area. Don't just let it fester as the joint can get worn down over time and lead to worse issues down the road.

Post: #24

I wish mine would just go away. At least the one guy didn't recommend beef jerky and taffy.