Muscle Spasms caused by Anterior Displacement with Reduction - TMJ Disorder -TemporoMandibular Joint Message Board

maxwell29 · 08-06-2008, 07:22 AM

Hey Folks

An MRI revealed that my right TMJ is anteriorly displaced but still reducing. It is anteriorly displaced when closed but reduced into the correct position with opened. I have always had a full range of motion and no real 'pain' per se. The real problem is constant muscle spasms on the right side. Does anyone think this could be the source of my problems? I am really sick of this and think I may eventually pursue some kind of surgical procedure down the road. However, because I have a full range of motion, I suspect people will not want to operate on me. Has anyone had similar experiences w/ jaw joint issues that do not cause motion problems but just cause muscle spasms? Thanks again.

-MS

Thelma-Louise · 08-06-2008, 01:27 PM

I am getting facial spasms that involve my tongue and midline area just beneath my nose - yet a second or 2 before I get them I can feel pain building in other areas of my body just before the spasm occurs and from what drs that have reviewed my MRIs have told me, I do not have any displacement issues - when my spasms first started almost every dr told me it was not related to "tmj" per se - so my feeling is that is what is going on with you as well. My current dr and chiro feel an anterior bridge I had replaced torqued the implants it was attached to and the force of this over time resulted in a structural conflict within the cranio-facial and cervical areas. Is it possible that you have something along the same lines - that although the displacement is evident - it is not the source of the spasms but could have started the ball rolling or the displacement itself also resulted from something else structually being misaligned?

maxwell29 · 08-06-2008, 02:23 PM

Thelma-Louise - If you do not wear your splint for a long period of time (6 months or so - if you've ever tried) do the muscle spasms in your body decrease? In my situation, the muscle spasms in my body decrease, however, my jaw is always 'searching' around for a happy place and I get tense muscles on the right side with and without the splint. In a sense, the splint pushes the muscle spasms downward and makes my mouth feel kind of okay. I don't doubt I do have some structural problems because my whole neuromuscular system from age 11 on developed around the pop. I hope/think at least half of the issue is do the the right joint (where the pop used to be being out of whack). Only time will tell what will eventually happen... I don't think a neuromuscular dentist would ultimately be able to help me, but I would be curious to see exactly what muscle the spasms begins with from their EMG equipment. I think that have EMG equipment at Tufts and that is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to going there

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Thelma-Louise · 08-06-2008, 04:08 PM

I had a Surface EMG done by a Upper Cervial Chiro (aka NUCCA chiro) so you don't necessarily need to wait for Tufts for that - so if you want call around to some chiros in you area to see if they have it. It provided a colored print out of 4 different charts that show what muscle groups are involved but it was limited to the c-spine and spine - are you hoping Tufts uses it on your facial muscles to determine where the problem is?

I don't wear the splints I have and the splints I have tried in the past seemed to make my symptoms more pronounced - another reason why the drs I have seen feel my problem is more structural than tmj related. When I do wear what I have my jaws start jumping around as well and basically will not find a place to rest - its annoying - but they also have no affect on the spasms. Also when I wear the splints my jaw will pull to one side - which no one has been able to explain why - yet w/o the splints It goes back to center - it has happened the same way with every splint I have worn by various drs - and when the jaw is pulled to that side the widespread pain
becomes intolerable again.

Have you made your arrangments then to go to Tufts - I'm just wondering how that is going.

maxwell29 · 08-06-2008, 05:34 PM

I'm still trying to determine if our reactions to the splint are similar. Let me describe the following experience (probably why I'm so disturbed at this moment and am actually traveling to see specialists):

Earlier this year, about 1 year after I'd had orthognathic surgery in 2006, there was still what I observed to be some minor muscle tension left. I still had my hopes high that it had actually been my bite that was the problem and I thought that maybe if I just stopped wearing my soft splint that the problem would go away. (Before orthognathic surgery, it seemed as if I was clenching my teeth uncontrolably. However, after the surgery I completely stopped clenching altogether, but some tension still remained.)

So, in September of 07 I stopped wearing it with my hopes high of being done with this problem for good. The next few months were very strange and often painful. It was as if my body was untorquing itself. My left toe would to numb and I would often get strange jerks. I was also in pain a lot. I was still hopeful that this was just years of the prior muscle tension from my bite 'working' itself out. I also started having memory problems and all kinds of other issues that made me less productive at work. In May of 08, the muscle spasms in my body were completely gone except the right half and a little of the left half of my head. But even with these spasms, I wasn't sleeping well and felt 'sick' during the day.

Hence, I started wearing the soft splint again. Disturbingly, over the course of the next two months, I could feel the muscle spasms gain intensity and slowly spread through my body once again. It has been crazy. As we speak, I can feel a static like feeling in my right foot. My body is still adjusting to the tension in my jaw. However, I made one valuable discovery. In my case, it is far better to have the muscle spasms pushed down into my body and my head jaw operating/feeling okay than vice versa. I will never go w/o the soft splint again. I also realized that a lot of various feeling over the past 5 years, such as my hips feeling tight, or my knee/leg locking or asleep after long periods of time were due to this muscle tension that has transcended my body. This did not happen overnight!

As I said before, I have always been a very tense/energetic person and probably an intense tooth grinder in my youth. I probably had it coming in some for or another (especially w/ the pop). Perhaps TMJ is natural selection's way of taking tense/nervous people out of the gene pool

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It is crazy because last year I was finishing up a Masters degree and was totally productive. It was as if I was so busy that I didn't have time to think about what was going on in my body. I think I slept pretty well too. This year I've been really depressed. I need to put this problem in the corner of my mind once again and be productive.