I have been reading alot of the posts under the heading of List your symptoms. I have noticed alot of people have listed ear fullness, dizziness, headaches at back of head, tinnitus etc.
I know that alot of you have very serious problems with your tmj joints which you have confirmed through diagnostic tests. I have not had any tests done other than x-rays, but am having a tomogram of the joints on Thurs. Here is what I have learned so far:
I have been wearing a repositioning splint for a couple of months and have had 2 adjustments. I have found that since I have been wearing the splint that I no longer wake up with a headache and I no longer snore, so my husband says. I wear it 24/7 except to eat. I do find that I have to be careful what I eat as my r tmj can get very sore.
I have also been seeing a physio therapist for the past 3 weeks. According to her the ear problems, balance problems and tinnitus are coming from the tension in the sternocleimastiod muscles. She has been teaching me to release the tension myself by using a pinching technique along the muscle. What I have found is that my ear is no longer feeling quite so plugged, the tinnitus has lessened by about a third and the brain fog is a little better. This leads me to wonder how much of the tmj symptoms are muscle related. MY neuro dentist says it is muscular and so does the PT. I just read an article in the Readers Digest, quote,"Got an aching neck? Put away the pain killers. According to a study of people suffering neck pain, manual therapy-using hands to stretch muscles for pain relief may be the best cure. The technique is used by chiropractors, physio therapists and osteopaths. Dutch researchers report that those who received manual therapy recovered faster than those told to exercise, or who got counselling and drugs from a dr." I know that for me the muscle release has helped more than anything else I have tried. On the other hand it could be the splint is doing all the work too. Anyone got any ideas, had this done or checked into it?
I've also been doing some reading on tmj, and yes it seems that it mostly comes down to the muscles.
My girlfriend happens to also be my PT so naturally I have driven her mad with questions, because I want to understand what's going wrong. She also thinks most of tmj problems are caused by problematic muscles.
(sorry my english isn't that great)
But the problem is, that when there's something wrong with, say, your joint on the left side your muscles will automaticly work overtime on your right side, to avoid pain. So your muscles will memorize that position, possibly causing more problems in the long run. And eventually ending up on this forum...
So actually it can be muscular or a bone issue, because the one affects the other and vice versa.
It has a lot to do w. muscular problems. This is why people have a triangle of head-neck-jaw pain. A really good book on the subject is Pain Erasure by Bonnie ****cant remember the last name. It point to specific muscles that contribute to the ear ringing and jaw pain.
i definitely know that some of my symptoms are attributed to muscular problems - when i had my botox the first time, my pain got incredibly better, and i hardly had a migraine. during that time, i realized i had actual pain in TMJs, tho, which was distressing because i personally had always thought that my problems were muscular.
the SCM is definitely one of my major problems.. especially on my right side.
- saaraah.
[This message has been edited by saaraah (edited 09-28-2003).]
Could tmjd have alot of muscular aspects? 
