TMJ

[livius drusus]

There's an interesting little article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/health/04case.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) about TMJ (Temporomandibular joint disorder) in the NYT today.

The temporomandibular joint lies between the lower jaw, or mandible, and the skull. It's wildly mobile, a hula dancing hinge that goes side to side, backward, forward, up, down. It can exert 650 to 1,000 pounds of force per square inch.

"You could bite your own finger off," the orthodontist said.

In classic TMJ (also called cranial mandibular syndrome), cramped, overworked muscles spasm, often when a disk that cushions the joint slips. Then all that jaw power — frantic, clenching night and day as the joint fights to right itself — backfires.

The causes include injury, habitual clenching or grinding, even hard foods (one of Dr. Chang's patients loved eating pigs' feet). A deep overbite, which holds the lower teeth back and keeps the jaw from relaxing, increases the risk.

Grinder here. :wave: I've ground my teeth in my sleep since I was a little kid, and I've had TMJ since I was 16 or 17, when I suddenly noticed my jaw was clicking as I gnoshed on a sandwich.

I didn't realize more women than men are affected, and that estrogen may be a factor for women under 50. Anyone else blessed with the joy of TMJ?

[viscousmemories]

Well there's no denying it now. I'm a woman.

[curses]

:wave: Yup. Deep overbite as a child, and having braces seems to have made it worse (my dentist's theory). Nothing beats that constant jaw popping sound every time I yawn. Blah.

[LadyShea]

My perfect orthodontics-produced-bite was all screwed up after having my excessive number of wisdom teeth removed, and I have had slight TMJ ever since. Luckily I have learned to live with it and it's not debilitating for me, though it is with some people.

[Ymir's blood]

My jaw will pop if opened all the way. It's only bothersome if I'm yawning a lot or trying to swallow something bigger than my head. :rattler:

[Leesifer]

... when I suddenly noticed my jaw was clicking as I gnoshed on a sandwich.

I haven't read the article yet but I get this when I'm eating sometimes - not always though.

[freemonkey]

I'm a grinder/clencher, and have caused damage to my teeth because of it. I don't know that I have TMJ, though, unless symptoms include neck and back pain.

My husband gets that clicking & popping when he eats. Its very disconcerting!

[Julie]

I'm *was* a clencher. Then about 10 years ago driving down the road I sneezed and blew out the disk on the right side of my jaw, distroying the disk and doing permanent nerve and muscle damage. My Jaw was stuck open about 3 mm with no up down or side to side movement and only very slight forwards and backwards movement. Many years of physio and surgery on the joint later I now have ~ 1/3 ability to to open and still very limited side to side and forwards/backwards movement, plus cronic pain.

Oh and from having to wear a splint 24/7 for the last 12 years I also have cavities....the fact that I could barely brush my teeth for 2 1/2 years didnt help with that either. (so now i have a back tooth that is half gone and untill it gets infected and HAS to come out my dentest and I have decided to let it quietly rot away. I need to be put under full anesetic to get it removed because they need to pry my jaw open to do anything in there...fun fun fun)

Heh I am the worst case senario for TMJ problems ;)

[viscousmemories]

<crazy story about seriously messed up stuff>
:eek:

Damn, that sucks. :(

[Dingfod]

Well there's no denying it now. I'm a woman.Me too. I'm a grinder too and it's causing me problems right now as I write, thanks to a poorly fit crown and subsequent adjustments to my bite. I should buy stock in Motrin.

[livius drusus]

/me :faint: at Julie's story.

[Crumb]

No TMJ here. :phew: I thought a few cavities were bad. I do have a gold capped tooth. :)

[Dingfod]

No TMJ here. :phew: I thought a few cavities were bad. I do have a gold capped tooth. :)I bet you got props from your homies for that.

[livius drusus]

Crumbles Crumb!

[Crumb]

That's me! :pimpin:

[wildernesse]

I have TMJ--I grind my teeth at night if I'm stressed, and then my jaw gets all out of whack. Diagnosed when I was about 16 while I was waiting on my college admission letters. I don't have any real problems with it now, although I realized this semester that when I feel my face all tensed up in class that I pop my jaw around. I'm sure that looks lovely.

[freemonkey]

Julie!! Ouch!! :huggle:

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Sounds like me--sometimes I clench, sometimes my jaw pops. :shrug:

[Dingfod]

There seems to be an awful lot of this TMJ thing in this group. How prevalent is it overall?

[Julie]

Meh 'Tis life. Me I was delt a tough row to hoe. My Jaw really is one of the least of my problems now. Amazingly you actually get used to the pain.

Still not used to the nerve damage tho. I cant feel my face on the right side from the bottom lip to the bottom of my eye brow, feeling starts around the side of my nose and behind my ear.....but only on the serface. I can still feel the muscle pain.

Seriously, it has been this way for so many years I am used to it. But I highly reccomend anyone having problems with the clenching/grining/popping go see a spaliest and get a splin right away to help prevent further problems.

Oh and mine was not only from the clenching but because I was in a car accident when I was ~7 and my top vertabra is turned in and stuck under the lip of my skull so my skull grew ever so slightly out of whack....

[pescifish]

Julie, that's a lot of out-of-whack stuff. I'm sorry you have to deal with so much!

[viscousmemories]

<removed>

[erimir]

My jaw used to pop, I think it started after I got sealants and they kept my jaw open as wide as it would go for like over an hour. My jaw was so sore afterwards.

However, the popping stopped during high school, so I'm good now.

[Bella]

Me too. I would grind my teeth so hard in my sleep that my family could hear it. They slept downstairs. I slept upstairs. When I got put on anti-epilepsy drugs for my bipolar disorder, the grinding stopped. Don't know what that was all about - neither do the doctors, beause they don't think the grinding was from seizures - but hey, whatever works.

[Julie]

LOL Humm a humorless joke eh? It wouldnt have anything to do with blow jobs would it? My Poor deprived hubby heh. Hell I was pregnant twice before he could even really kiss me.

And Damn it I was good at bj...

[viscousmemories]

No, no. Sorry. No blowjob jokes. I had ribbed you about encouraging everyone to go to a "spaliest" and get a "splin", assuming that those were real words that I just didn't know but pretending that you had just made them up. Sometime later it occurred to me that you had probably simply typoed on "specialist" and "splint", and I didn't want you to think I was dissing your typing abilities.

Now the important question: Were you happier not knowing what I deleted? :)

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

BJ jokes would've been funnier.

[viscousmemories]

Not much wouldn't.

[Lauri D]

I don't have TMJ, but intermittently (usually during periods of stress) will grind my teeth (while sleeping) like nobody's business. At one point my dentist was going to recommend some kind of mouth-guard, but the episode passed. Has anyone ever used one (in case it ever comes back?) Is it kind of like what prize-fighters use during a fight?

[Julie]

No the blow jobs would have been funnier...But so's the typos. I didnt even see them!

I was talking about this once years ago and typed that I dislocated the dick in my jaw...now that was a typo.


LOL I know I'm a terrible speller and a worse typer. If I ever make good typos please feel free to poke at them. Ya wont bother me in the least.

[viscousmemories]

I was talking about this once years ago and typed that I dislocated the dick in my jaw...now that was a typo.
:laugh:

[Julie]

LOL Seriously i could not live it down. The Mods and the admins wore it as their siggys for years. I even had a special title of Queen of Dorks gifted to me for it. It was priceless.

[viscousmemories]

That's awesome.

[livius drusus]

Has anyone ever used one (in case it ever comes back?) Is it kind of like what prize-fighters use during a fight? I've used one, and it's more like those clear braces things I've seen advertized. There's no middle piece covering the front of your teeth (you know that bit that looks like you've put a wedge of orange in your mouth so you can scare kiddies with your freaky orange peel mouth?), just two molded pieces of clear plastic fitted to the upper and lower rows of teeth.

They're aight. They have to fit really well though or you wake up with your whole head hurting. That can take a few visits to the dentist for fine-tuning.

[Dingfod]

I don't have TMJ, but intermittently (usually during periods of stress) will grind my teeth (while sleeping) like nobody's business. At one point my dentist was going to recommend some kind of mouth-guard, but the episode passed. Has anyone ever used one (in case it ever comes back?) Is it kind of like what prize-fighters use during a fight?The one I had looked nothing like an athletic mouth guard, it was more like a partial-plate type appliance. It fit only to the top teeth; other than the wires that clamped it to my teeth, it was pretty much invisible. I should find it and see if it still fits.

[pescifish]

I bought a cheapo athletic teeth guard from the drugstore when I had a problem. It was clear rubbery plastic in one piece like the gooey bloody ones you see being dragged out of prize-fighter's mouths after the bell rings. The instructions had me heat it in near boiling water to soften it and then clamp down on it so that it molded to my teeth and bite.

It worked well. I didn't need it very long. It seemed that once I consciously knew I had been unconsciously tapping my teeth in my sleep, I stopped doing it. The only reason I found out was I went to the dentist with a bad toothache, imagining root canals and other horrors. But the dentist saw that part of my upper teeth were banging into a part sticking up on my lowers and the nightly tooth tapping was like hitting a hammer over and over into that bottom tooth. I wasn't grinding my teeth, just doing a jackhammer version of teeth chattering.

She ground that spot down and recommended the mouth guard and asked if I was under any stress. (Yes, something very real, so it was understandable.) Between the mouth guard and my own conscious stress coping, the tooth tapping stopped.