Just curious how many people are out there with TMJ are housebound or well close to it. I know TMJ is very different for everyone but I'd like to get sort of an idea.
For me I am 19 and havent been back to college in about a year now and am hoping to return after christmas seeing as my treatment is going well, anyway hope to hear some responses
Worst symptoms is forehead pain. Rest are TM joint pain on the left sometimes right, temple pain. Facial/sinus pain, shoulders, neck(sometimes terribly stiff neck), Eye pain is awful aswell.
I am seeing Dr. Simmons in Nashville TN, where I live and he is supposed to work wonders on patients. I am about 2 months into treatment, and can tell over these 2 months that my symptoms have been changing. The first 2 weeks were absolute hell, I was pretty much bed bound and didnt leave the house for that time. Then it started to ease up and I felt better than I was feeling prior to getting them in.
But I have just recently had a sort of relapse type deal the past few days. I'm not sure what made it happen but my pain has increased alot and the mild-annoying symptoms which seemed to go away for awhile have returned full force, not sure if its my sleep getting off track or the fact that I worked out pretty hard, which I told my doctor I had and he said a big no to doing that till I am better.
Also what was wrong with my jaw is they took x-rays and told me my bite was off enough so that I had 2 things grinding up against each other in the TM joint and have to wear splints to correct it. I wear a bottom one all day and the other is a top & bottom splint I wear at night.
I haven't been able to work or socialize for close to 3 1/2 yrs and only recently got approved for SSDI benefits. The first 3 years were horrible - plenty of days where I couldn't get out of bed or spent the day crying from the intense pain and facial spasms. I couldn't drive the first yr so had to rely on family members to take me to various drs, therapies, etc.
I am now on my 5th tmj dr and 3rd chiro who specializes in cranial disorders and have seen slight improvement within the last couple of months but am told I have a long way to go yet so I am not sure if I am on the road to recovery or not - so basically I just take one day at a time. But my problem progressed beyond tmj since it affected my cranial and cervical alignment so in addition to the "normal" tmj symptoms I get body pain and spasms, muscle twitching in my limbs, lost some upper body strength and have trouble walking.
I am so glad you are making some progress and sure hope you do get back to school this winter.
I haven't been able to work since January 2007. Still in a lot of pain. It's improving slowly, but I have to now take a lot of vitamin supplements to deal with deficiencies on top of the TMJ.
hi , i'm in braces now for phase 2, i took a little over a year to fix mine , i had many trigger point injections in my jaw joint ,they realy helped, i wasn't real fond of the splints but they realy worked, then he started cutting away the splints an exposeing set's of molors an pulling them into place with the elastics attached to my braces , i'm not taking any pain meds anymore i was on oxycodone, thar stuff took away the pain but couldn't do anything else , he if a great guy , but it does take a while to get there so don't give up ,
Re: Is anyone with TMJ "disabled"? 
