KMX

Hi,
Your muscle symptoms are real but what is causing them has nothing to do with something being wrong with your back, etc... There are 2 explanations... first when you have TMJ your jaw is displaced and your jaw is your center of gravity. If the alignment of your jaw is off it throws the alignment of your whole body off which explains why TMJ suffers tend to lean forward and are often lopsided, with one shoulder higher then the other. Also my doctor showed me this test that also helps to explain what's happening to your body. He had me stant with my right arm extended out to my side, raised just slightly above my shoulder and told me to try and bite down and then he pushed on my arm with me resisting as hard as I could. He was able to lower my arm quite easily. Then he told me to put my new splint in and he did it again and I was able to resist him with so much more strength. This test shows you that you lose approximately 20% of your muscle power when you suffer from TMJ because the jaw is our base of power. I was very athetic before I became ill so he told me that I probably lost 30% of my power, which makes so much sense because I felt so weak before I got a proper aligned splint. What this explains is that our balance of power is thrown off when our jaw alignment is off, causes some muscles to work harder to try and balance us out, leading to muscle aching and strain. Then there is the issue of deferred pain which is caused by the compressed nerves in the back of the TMJ socket that causes us to suffer seemingly random pain but the pain is not actually in the location that it appears to be in. For example I have a spot in my back that hurts all the time and if you push on it it feels bruised but good at the same time. There is no bruise there and when x-rayed there is no injury to the muscle or to my back in any way but you feel that there is and it drives you crazy, this is because the pain is deferred from the screwed up messages in your brain from the damaged nerves. Your body thinks your back is injured but it's the messed up nerve signals that make it appear this way to you. Massage helps the strained muscles temporarily but the strain will always return until the cause, the alignment of the jaw is addressed. But the phamtom pains never seemed to be relieved by massage or anything else because the pain is not actually there but is being deferred from the damaged nerves. I know exactly what I'm trying to explain, I just hope I'm coming across clearly. I am not a doctor or a dentist but I do understand TMJ to a great extent and I'm working to learn more and more. I hope I've helped but if you have any questions I would be happy to try and explain further.
Kelly