ow.

[fox]

Today has been a very difficult TMJ day. Actually a difficult week. Since I had the braces adjusted on Tuesday everything has hurt like hell. Two nights in a row the pain woke me up; this morning I went to the PT in the hope that he would be able to help not only with the head and neck and dizziness thing but also with the jaw thing. I may have cried a little while I was telling him about how hard my summer has been. Got a little electro-stim on my neck before I left, and that was fine, but my jaw has really never hurt so much.

I finally called the orthodontist's office, and he called back an hour later to agree that it shouldn't hurt this much and suggest a couple of things that might help. Bump the invisalign tray back to night-time only, for one; cut away the last molar from that tray if that doesn't work, for another. I came home and took 800mg of ibuprofen and all evening have been having limited success with a combination of heat and ice and stretching; when the pain ebbs it's not bad at all, just the sort of feeling like the joint is bruised (which by now it may be) - but when it stops ebbing it is excruciating.

Help. :-(

Comments

[twistedchick]

You're doing it right with ibuprofen, heat and ice. When I had (horrible) braces, and ibuprofen didn't cut it, the only thing that did was good Scots single-malt whiskey.

::wishing you a more pleasant autumn than the summer has been::

[invaderjim]

Your whole experience sounds horrible. If I remember correctly, all the medical tests came back negative, right? I know you didn't ask for advice, but if you are out of options, look into Trigger Point Therapy (related to myofascial release), which you can easily do on yourself. Physical therapy does this without calling it by name. I find it wonderful and extremely effective. If you're interested, check out the self-massage manual homepage, where they explain the theory behind trigger point pain (http://www.triggerpointbook.com/index.html - scroll down) and their partial list of symptoms this kind of massage can treat (http://www.triggerpointbook.com/index.html#symptomindex - TMJ, dizziness, etc.). In fact, I was studying the book last night for some pain I've got in my neck and saw that a strained neck muscle can cause both dizziness and TMJ pain, and thought of you. I hope the pain stops soon!

[invaderjim]

And they have an example up (with diagram) on which muscle in the jaw can causes sinus pain and TMJ and how to massage it - http://www.triggerpointbook.com/examples.htm

There are many other muscles, especially in the neck, that are relevant, too.

[fox]

I may have found this solution all by myself. The thing that's been working best when the ibuprofen and heat and ice haven't helped is poking at it with my fingers; so far I've always (eventually) been able to find a spot that makes the pain recede for whole minutes at a time. (Sometimes long enough to fall asleep, even.)

Also the PT said "trigger points" a couple of times, related to particular knots in my neck and shoulders, so this will be a feature of some of the deep-tissue stuff I get in there, I bet.

[invaderjim]

Wonderful! That's awesome you have a PT who recognizes trigger points. I find the thumb inside the mouth (squeezing the cheek muscle) massage astoundingly eliminates my pain from clenching my teeth, but I don't have full blown TMJ.

[fox]

I don't either. Nothing clicks! ... it just hurts a lot. :-)

Interestingly, over the past couple of days I've noticed that my jaw hurts a lot less when I am walking somewhere than it does when I am sitting still. This could be a simple circulatory issue (I mean, it could be in my head) or it could be that when my arm is moving, as it does when I'm walking, it's not knotting up my shoulder the way it might when I sit still or lie down. (The fact that the pain recedes when I'm moving has made getting to sleep a particular challenge. What I wouldn't give for a hammock, the past couple of nights, because how do I know if it couldn't be helped by movement in space, rather than muscle movement, you know?)