Must be a regional thing. My Oral Surgeon and all the brochures in his office call it TMD. I guess TMJ Syndrome is used as well in other areas. I’m sure if you did a Google search on both (or even all 3 names) you would find information on it.
I hope you find some solutions that work for you and don’t ignore it like I did. The recovery is difficult and there were many times I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat right again. My jaw still doesn’t align completely, but I can chew now and to me that’s huge progress.
Back to the dentist today, and they took impressions so I can get the splint within a couple of weeks; it takes that long to fabricate. In the meantime, I will stay with the heat packs and Tylenol, since Aleve did nothing. It still hurts like a sumbitch in the early morning and wakes me up. The actual cause is jaw clenching, most likely tension- and stress-related.
I clench my teeth when I sleep as well. My TMJ had been quite mild for a number of years. I never had any pain, just clicking and popping. Then a few years back, for no apparent reason, I woke up with my jaw locked open. Not wide, wide open, but I couldn’t bring my teeth together & I couldn’t chew food. It was extremely disconcerting. After 30 minutes or more of activity, I’d eventually be able to get my jaw working again. The next morning though, I’d be back in the same position. A month or more passed while I found a TMJ specialist, got an appointment and finally got my splint. It was a miserable month, but the splint was a life saver. Within just a few days, my jaw was significantly better. I was shocked at how quickly it worked. The doc said such quick results weren’t typical though.
It’s been three or four years now. I wear my splint maybe once a week, just enough that it’ll continue to fit. I haven’t had any problems. I hope everything works out as well for you.
SWMBO grinds her teeth at night, has since she was a small child. She wears a splint to protect the teeth and now takes a muscle relaxant called Elavil before she goes to sleep to reduce the stress from the grinding.
Over the years, the stress has pretty much destroyed her left TMJ. The joint is almost completely gone and the dentist has described what is happening as basically the bone ends are eventually going to rub themselves down and create a new “fake” joint. Until that happens, she’s not going to be a happy camper.
I just got my little splint today. I’ve worn it for a while and am getting used to it. I hope it works for me every night. I’ll be going back for an adjustment in mid-January.
I have extremely mild TMJ – occasional pain, but frequently my left TMJ will grind whenever I open or close my mouth. I clench my jaw frequently and unconsciously, so I look forward to having full-blown TMJ dysfunction one of these days.
A few months later, I am nearly pain-free. I try to remember to wear the little dealie every night. It has dramatically decreased the headaches, nearly eliminated the jaw pain, and I don’t find my ears ringing anymore (dentist just told me that’s another side effect of jaw-clenching).
The other night I forgot to wear it and woke up with a nasty, sharp headache. Learned my lesson the hard way.
I had what I thought was TMJ trouble years ago when I was in high school. Every once in awhile I’d open my mouth to eat something and then just double over in pain. I could never open wide, and sometimes I could hardly open at all. I seem to have grown out of it, so maybe it wasn’t TMJ?
I have TMJ Syndrome, thanks to twelve years of playing the flute. (Try to resist the urge to make jokes.) I was diagnosed after a week at music camp left my jaw pretty much locked in place. I have one of those mouthguard thingies, which I LOATHE and never use. My dentist assured me I’d get used to it immediately and soon I wouldn’t be able to sleep without it; obviously he’s a big fibber. I can’t see the point anyway, as my main problem is not that I grind my teeth - I clench my jaws in my sleep, and the mouthguard doesn’t help in the slightest with that. I take prescription muscle relaxants instead, otherwise I wake up constantly with intense pain in my left TMJ, right under my ear. (I thought it was an ear infection, at first.)
I ran out of my pills awhile ago and have been going without because my ENT wouldn’t refill my scrip unless I went in for a checkup, and I was mad at him, so I didn’t go. (He performed what he called a “minor surgical procedure” on my nose, only it turned out to be a lot less minor than he’d led me to believe and I was pissed off that he hadn’t told me what to expect.) Only I’m going through a really stressful time at the moment and my TMJ is killing me, giving me headaches, waking me up at night, etc. So I have to go see him, and I am grouchy about it.
The only piece of advice I religiously follow is the gum chewing thing. A couple minutes of chewing gum, and my jaw is locked up. I don’t think I’ve chewed gum in ten years.
I’ve had TMJD since 1997. Got splints, braces, got it under control. Jaw shifted, got splints, braces again, under control again. My first bout with it I self-medicated with weed. Not such a good idea. Second time around I went to my doctor at the first sign of pain.
And yes, fellatio is hard to do when you have TMJD.
My husband is another adult braces success story. He had them for a year and now wears a night guard to keep everything in place. He hasn’t had any pain since, that I’m aware of.
I try to remember to wear the little dealie every night. It has dramatically decreased the headaches, nearly eliminated the jaw pain, and I don’t find my ears ringing anymore (dentist just told me that’s another side effect of jaw-clenching).