tmj treatment advice - TMJ Disorder -TemporoMandibular Joint Message Board

embean · 01-16-2009, 05:17 PM

I am 21 and have pretty much always had TMJ. I had braces a top jaw expander when I was 15-19 to fix overall jaw problems. I know I clench my jaw and grind my teeth at night. I got an appliance for this, which helped in the short term. Eventually I stopped using it because I could feel that I wasn't doing it anymore. I generally "know" when I do this. In recent months, my jaw pain/face muscle soreness/tension headaches/jaw clicking have gotten worse. I accept that I probably can't be "cured," but I am looking for treatment to manage this and prevent it from getting worse, as I'm pretty young.

I am not willing to have more orthodontics or any surgery. This is too expensive and I don't think appropriate for the amount of pain (nothing too horrible, just uncomfortable). I am interested in cranial sacral therapy. Has anyone experienced this? What IS it? Also, perhaps masseter massage.

Any other suggestions?

Thelma-Louise · 01-16-2009, 05:49 PM

I have done cranial sacral therapy - did it for almost one year - I found it very helpful with over all body pain and muscle tightness and twitching I was experiencing and it did help my body relax as it had become so tight due to chronic tmj pain. I am not sure I buy into what it supposedly does - increase cranial sacral fluid around the brain - but it also addresses the facia - a thin sheath of membrane that covers the muscles of the entire body beneath the skin - which supposedly can become twisted and consequently restrict muscle movement and fluidity. It also helped with my sense of equilibrium. Its a light touch therapy applied to pressure points along the acupuncture meridian. Most of my sessions seemed to put me in a light meditative state - if not dreamy and feeling like I was floating - and I generally felt better after eacg treatment session.

I also did PT for 3-4 months which included among other things 20 mins of neck, spine and cranium massage which also helped relax my jaw, face and neck muscles.

However like most forms of therapies, they generally do not cure or fix the root cause of the problem but instead treat the symptoms - which therefore make them easier to live or cope with - but it must be continued on a regular basis to sustain continued relief or improvement. But if you are only dealing with slight or moderate discomfort they are certainly worth trying.

embean · 01-16-2009, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thelma-Louise

I also did PT for 3-4 months which included among other things 20 mins of neck, spine and cranium massage which also helped relax my jaw, face and neck muscles.

What is PT?

Thelma-Louise · 01-16-2009, 06:30 PM

Physical Therapy - there are various forms of it depending on what is being treated but I went to physical therapist who only treated tmj and jaw and cranial problems related to the neck and spine.

StillHope · 01-16-2009, 07:22 PM

Hello embean,
I am going through the bite/tmj problems caused by dental work for 9 years and by now became quite educated. I can guess that due to the expansion braces they could have caused the open bite which made your jaw move forward out of its pain-free functional position; this created tmj symptoms.
Clicking may be the sign that the disk moves too forward and this happens because there is no stable bite (by whatever reason).

Have you had an MRI of your jaw? You are young so it's worth stopping the damage and prevent the worsening. I'd suggest to look for dentists who graduated from Pankey institute or KOIS center - this was a dentist's recommendation for me. The ones whom I saw were indeed knowledgeable. Those who were also decent didn't want to take my case and risk failing but the bad guys just took my money and didn't do much of anything b/c they knew that it would be time consuming to do it right. But at least those schools teach about the whole system of the teeth, gums, jaw, muscles.