TMJ or other jaw related pain question

it's TMJ. it was the worst with me when i was clinching my teeth a lot. if i am under stress i would be almost unconsciously clinching my jaw and grinding my teeth at night and even when i was awake. i even chipped one of my teeth grinding them...it scared the crap out of me when it happened.

the first time when i found out what it was i actually went to the doc because i had pains in my ear. he told me that pain in the ear was actually from my jaw grinding.

if you open your mouth so that your jaw bone kind of moves away from your ear and you try to massage right around in there then it kind of helps. you will also find out it hurts amazingly bad when you do it. it kind of helped my jaw relax some when i did it.

anyhow...things got a bit better with me when i started making a conscious effort to relax my jaw when i realized i was doing it and i would also try to massage my jaw at night before i went to sleep to relax it a bit so i wouldn't grind my teeth as much. also, if you are stressed out you will probably do it a lot more. so try to relax if anything is bothering you.

if it gets worse go see a doctor or see one now and you can get something to wear for it at night.

 

Take three Advil, that is what my dentist told me to do. Supposedly it is the equivalent to the muscle relaxer he would have prescribed anyway. Worked pretty well.

 

My jaw actually locked up on me when I yawn back then when I first had TMJ! Literally, I couldn't close my jaw for a while...

That stuff hurts when I try to close it back up!

 

For people who do not know, TMJ is the Temporomandibular joint, a joint in the lower jaw. TMJ is actually an abbreviation for the joint although it is commonly used to describe TMD, Temporomandibular Joint Disorder.


www.tmj.org

 

yeah....i've had a couple times when i thought that was gonna happen. i just kind of caught my jaw before it felt like it was gonna lock. scared the crap out of me.

 

Try getting a custom mouth piece fitted if you are grinding and gritting your teeth. If you grind and grit while you are awake, you usually don't notice it. Usually people grind when they are sleeping. The mouthpiece will help prevent the grinding down of your teeth and will help reduce TMJ pain.

 

Ah, I had the same thing happen to me once. I was in the middle of class when I couldn't get my mouth shut. I started shaking my head around and finally got it closed. Luckly only a few people saw it happen, and assumed I was just bored or something.

When I first got it a few years ago, it felt really strange. It never really hurt, but pissed the hell out of me. Now adays I don't even notice it unless I've been chewing for a long time, then it gets kinda sore.

I've never felt any pain from it. In the beginning I used to have a metalic taste in my mouth (blood?), but that's been gone for quite some time. So far my only symptom is that my mouth pops out of place when I open it wide. I'm so used to it that I only pop it when I really want to (used to do it all the time.)

 

I went to the doc for mine. He put two fingers on my left and right TMJ, and told me to open my mouth as wide as I could. My jaw is misaligned for whatever reason, and I can still feel it misaligned when I do it.