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theghost
30 Posts |
 Posted - 09/15/2011 : 06:55:01
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I actually have another issue to put up for discussion.
I started my road to recovery about two or three weeks ago, using the tms workbook. I'm starting to feel a lot better, but I'm having some problems at night.
I was prescribed a mouth guard (nti) device by a dentist. I've failed split therapy 3 times in the past because I cannot sleep with the device in. The device is helping me by taking the stress off of the muscle, but I am waking feeling like I haven't gotten any sleep at all after like 8 hours of sleep. It's messing with my mood and I am crying all the time.
I didn't wear the splint last night and I felt like I slept better than I have in a very long time, but I still feel like I got hit by a bus, and my jaw is sore this morning.
It would seem to me that I have a choice. Wear the splint and have the jaw heal but don't get any sleep, or don't wear it and get the sleep and have a great attitude and painful jaw.
I'm looking for any advice you guys can give me. I've been told NTI devices are life savers by some and that they will ruin my teeth and jaw by others.
I just need to start feeling good about my choices so I can stay on track with my recovery.
Any input is very much appreciated. I'm starting to feel better, but I am not there yet by any means.
Thank you all in advance. |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 07:00:01
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This sounds to me like the dental equivalent of orthotics, which most of us agree are useless or worse. TRust the millions of years of evolution that have gone into engineering these amazing bodies of ours.
My advice for what it's worth is to think of your jaw pain in terms of TMS, or if you prefer just plain stress. If you're not sleeping at night, that's only going to make the problem worse. |
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balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 08:20:01
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My brother is a dentist and he once told me they have no evidence whatsoever those devices do any good at all. It is more or less just a money making device for dentist. If the wearer see any benefit, he believe that benefit is just placebo effect.
Also, remember there is only one documented case in the world that someone die from a lack of sleep. Out of 7+ billion people on earth, your chance of becoming the second case is very slim. The majority of insomnias are caused by stress. And Insomnia only continue to exist is because the sufferer fear what insomnia would do to his/her body. In the past I used a little reverse psychology to deal with my occasional insomnia. I would accept my insomnia as a blessing. I would treasure the extra wake time I have and used those time to read, to write, to enjoy a little more time with my hobbies... I told myself I don't need as much sleep and it is wonderful I'm able to stay up longer. When you have no fear of insomnia then it is just going to leave. I think most insomnia is a form of tms. The more you worry about it the longer you going to suffer from it. No fear, no pain. |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 09:39:10
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I don't like the idea of the splint. I don't like the idea of things that are new, really. I tend to try to find reasons not to do things that are meant to help me. I just don't trust splints, and I cannot sleep with them. I feel like if I could get a good night's sleep, I could maintain a positive attitude and beat this thing. I didn't need a splint two years ago, so why now? There's something underlying that's causing all of this nonsense, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it.
If you guys have any more advice or input on mouth guards, I'll gladly take it. thanks for the input so far. :) |
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 12:25:43
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Hi Ghost,
I used to have to wear devices both top and bottom when I was younger or at least I supposed to. They were in part to prevent me wearing my teeth down due to an overbite. Despite 3 years of braces as an adult, I still have a severe overbite. I grind my teeth at night and sometimes during the day although recently I have been mindful of this and can often stop myself. I have recently been diagnosed with TMJ but I don't suffer from any pain. However the specialist has advised my regular dentist to fit me with a night guard to prevent further wear to my lower teeth. There is also wear to at the backs of my upper teeth. I am in a quandary about whether to go with this or just let my lower front teeth disappear. Some of the roots are exposed so this condition is well advanced.
If I were you I would keep going with the workbook and whatever else you can do to see if you can alleviate the jaw pain you are waking up with.
As for insomnia, my other half has suffered for decades. His insomnia sometimes stresses me out, especially when we go away on holiday and are stuck in one hotel room! |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 12:39:27
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I wouldn't have a problem sleeping with the mouth guard if it wasn't waking me up. If I sleep without it, I clench, but I sleep through the night. My jaw feels like hell in the morning, though.
When I wear the mouth guard, my jaw feels good, but I feel like I slept for about an hour. It's really starting to wear on me.
Sleeping pills and the like are sort of out of the question for me. I have to sort of figure out how to do this naturally, because I won't take medicine. I don't want there to be yet ANOTHER thing to have to deal with.
I also have wear on my teeth and exposed roots. That's why they want me to wear this stupid mouth guard. I was diagnosed with TMJ years and years ago, but I never had any pain from it until september of last year. Something about my job changed and I had a bad situation happen to me (very stressful), and I've been trying to cope with it ever since. I'm sort of at the end of my rope...but trying to get better. I have good days and bad days.
Almost losing my house to a flood last week certainly didn't help matters. I sort of had a relapse after I got back into my house. The ironic thing is that I was doing GREAT when I was evacuated from my house, lol.
I just... I dunno. I wish I could trust mouth guards. That's a big part of my problem. I'm destroying my teeth by clenching at night, but ... I really don't want to have to wear this stupid thing. It tastes horrible and i hate it.
I think if I could find a way to fall asleep and stay asleep while wearing it, I'd be perfectly fine. It's taking REALLY long to get used to, and when I'm tired, I'm angry, depressed and not in good spirits. |
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golden_girl
United Kingdom
128 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 19:51:28
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I have no idea if this will help but - out of four siblings, two of us never had braces. And us two feel we have great teeth - in fact, I often say it's "one of my best features!"
I didn't even know that your jaws are supposed to line up (are they?! I still don't know?) My top jaw goes over my bottom, and it feels natural. My teeth are a bit yellow, thanks SMOKING, but still whiter than many of my friends. I haven't seen a dentist in 10 years - not since they ripped out my wisdom teeth under general anaesthetic.
Never had a filling, never had a cavity, never braces, never a pain. But I've sure had TMS in bucket loads. And every time I get in the zone of thinking about my TMS, I'm there, grinding my teeth! I notice it every time! I'm doing it now - oops!
You need to tell yourself that either you sleep with the guard, or you sleep without it. Whatever you can get on board with first, and more easily. Either way - decide it's TMS, and decide you're in control - AND TELL YOURSELF THAT.
"F.E.A.R.
Forgive Everyone And Remember
For Everything A Reason"
Ian Brown |
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ennio
28 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2011 : 23:00:42
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I used to wear a guard at night--I was diagnosed with TMD--for close to a year. My jaw pain never went away and any improvement was marginal.
Then I discovered TMS and gradually started to get rid of devices including the mouth-guard. I haven't worn it in 6 months and my pain is no worse.
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Javizy
United Kingdom
76 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2011 : 01:08:17
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I was wearing a mouth guard until a little over two-weeks ago. If I didn't wear it, I'd wake up with painful front teeth which made me think I was on the way to losing them. I just couldn't be bothered to wear it on my holiday because it's pretty gross to have around and a pain to clean and prepare for use, so I went to sleep without it. Woke up feeling fine and my jaw didn't feel awkwardly misaligned like it sometimes does with the guard. I haven't worn it since.
It didn't just happen like that though. I've been practising de-stressing for a few months now, which has relieved a lot of tension. I also realised I had a habit of tongue-thrusting. Your tongue should touch just in front of your alveolar ridge with light pressure. If it's touching your teeth, or between your teeth right now, you have a problem. Having it in the right place aligns your jaw and lips, and allows you to swallow properly. I've trained it to sit there, and I think that was a big factor in freeing myself from the guard, too. |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 09:22:49
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Well, I've been wearing this NTI mouth guard for a month. It has succeeded in not only making the pain worse, but it's starting to give me an open bite. I am starting to get really frustrated by all of this. I'm doing the TMS workbook, and I'm having good days and really bad days. I'm best on the nights when I sleep. I can't sleep with the mouthguard because I pretty much chew on it and eat it all night. I wake up and two of my top teeth feel numb.
I'm starting to just get really frustrated and irritated. I need to stop going to doctors and stop dwelling on it and maybe it will eventually go away. There's always this feeling in the back of my mind that there might actually be something wrong. These incompetent doctors haven't even run any tests on me during this whole process. Not even a single blood test. they just said "you have tmj"... and then started throwing mouth guards at me. That's part of what makes me nervous.
I have a physical therapist and a massage therapist telling me I need to start eating on the right side (i still can't, it's numb and painful from my wisdom tooth surgery 6 months ago) ... and I've got a dentist telling me it's going to take a year for the sensation to feel normal again. I am truly at the end of my rope.
Not to mention the fact that this week I almost got fired from my job, we almost got flooded, and while our flood gates were up a man crashed into them and broke them. :(
anyway, thank you for your help, guys. I appreciate all the responses to this thread. I'm not in a good place right now, but I'm trying very hard to get there. I'm running out of options, and it's scaring me.
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 10:22:01
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Hi Ghost, I am sorry to hear about all the stress you have experienced recently. It isn't being helped by medical professionals either. The bad news is until you accept that TMJ is just TMS in one of it's many guises, the medical profession is there to look for structural explanations and your anxiety/fear is feeding the physical pain, this may not get resolved. The good news is you apparently have doubts about your pain being physical, otherwise you wouldn't be contributing to this forum. You are in good company here. My husband lost his job this week for the fourth time in about ten years. I have been trying my level best to talk to my brain "Do not even think of throwing any symptoms at me!" Even if I really wanted to go for that mouth guard I couldn't afford it anyway. Clouds with silver linings.
What would happen if you chuck your mouth guard in the drawer and forget about it. What do you think is the worst that can happen. Then ask, is this realistic or are you just making assumptions?
I sincerely hope things get better for you. Some events are simply out of our control, like floods and nut jobs driving into floodgates. But you have control of your thoughts. |
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Javizy
United Kingdom
76 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 11:14:47
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quote:
Originally posted by theghost
it's scaring me.
This is what you need to overcome ASAP. Fear elicits a stress response, and it won't just make your physical symptoms worse, it destabilises your brain chemistry so that you begin to feel increasingly more anxious and get stuck in a vicious cycle that leads to worse and worse suffering. |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 15:53:26
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You're right. The fear is debilitating. I'm going to get through it, but I slip back sometimes. it's not an overnight sensation. I've been through this several times in the past, and all the times were exactly the same. They were all brought on by an extremely stressful event. Turning it off is the hardest part, but I've done it before, I have to learn how to do it again.
I think it's important that I'm making connections with this new stuff and the stuff in the past... But what to do once I make those connections, that's a different story.
I like food, and it's absolutely killing me that I can't eat my favorite foods. I'm afraid I'll never eat them again. There's that fear again.
Does anyone have any advice on how to not have such a strong fear response? (aside from reading sarno's books, already doing that) The minute I have a weird ache or pain, my brain says "This is going to be just like the last time. this is going to be chronic". I"m so afraid of getting a long term illness again that my body makes it so.
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2011 : 16:09:50
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| When your brain says - this is going to like the last time - answer back. It is not like the last time because before you believed yourself to have a physical condition. Now you are aware that it is your current stressors that's bringing it on. You are then one up on your brain. I know it sounds naff but after years of migraine headaches I sometimes catch myself thinking that I'll never beat this Beast. It's easy to get defeatist when you are in the midst of a chronic attack. But mostly I just ride it out and not allow myself to get obsessed with it. I look for distractions. When the migraines first started decades ago I was never one to lie in bed. I preferred sitting up, looking out a window or something to take my mind off the pain. It didn't seem as bad then. What can you do to relax, take your mind off your TMS symptoms? |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2011 : 06:29:16
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To get my mind off of the symptoms, hm... what can I do? That's a good question.
The things that keep my mind off of it are the things that hurt me. And that's the part that is killing me. I am a comic book artist and I also sing. The TMJ is trying to take that away from me. I also enjoy playing video games. When I sit to play video games, my shoulder hurts, my jaw hurts, etc.
I also enjoy writing, and my arm/shoulder kill me when I type.
I force myself to work on my comic even though it hurts like hell. It doesn't seem to get any better, but at least I put a comic out a month.
My responses are becoming pavlovian at this point. I put the pencil in my hand to draw, and the shoulder/jaw start hurting. It has something to do with how I'm bending my neck, I think.
Does anyone know any helpful neck exercises?
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Bugbear
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2011 : 10:50:01
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Oddly enough I too suffer pain and weakness when I put a pen in hand and start to write. My arm and shoulder sometimes hurt but mainly feel weak. I fight it and write anyway. The pen keeps slipping out of my hand. My handwriting is practically illegible. Even I can't read my own writing sometimes. There is loads written about RSI/TMS but people tend to have problems typing. I can type til the cows come home. I work in a listening profession. I would like to take notes sometimes to remember things. I think I have compensated by honing my recall skills. I have to type up notes after a meeting and am pretty good remembering details. I have journalled about this writing thing but don't know what's going on. And yes i struggled with a pen and paper to get these thoughts down. Could be something deep in my unconscious. It's definitely TMS because I sew, sometimes by hand. No problems handling a threaded needle. This is a very fine motor skill and if there was something physical going on sewing would be out of the question.
You mention the position of your neck possibly causing your pain - but this is taking a physical/structural approach. You also said something about the things that you enjoy, things that could distract you are actually causing the pain. I don't think this is some awful coincidence. Something to ponder. |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2011 : 12:00:31
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quote:
You mention the position of your neck possibly causing your pain - but this is taking a physical/structural approach. You also said something about the things that you enjoy, things that could distract you are actually causing the pain. I don't think this is some awful coincidence. Something to ponder.
I agree that this is not coincidence. My body is trying to keep me from enjoying myself because I feel guilty about something. What, I have no idea. Maybe that I shouldn't be doing things that are fun, maybe that I should be cleaning the house, that I should be doing something productive. I wish my gosh-darned body and mind would stop "should"ing me! >:( |
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Sarah Jacoba
USA
81 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2011 : 00:05:51
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TMJ was my first TMS symptom. I became convinced the treatment and the philosophy behind it was a sham. after 9 months of excruciating jaw and facial pain, my jaw pain disappeared completely overnight. why? because I stopped treatment and TMS moved the pain into my shoulders and arms instead (ironic). But TMJ is TMS, plain and simple!
--Sarah Hyacinth Jacoba
"When dream and day unite" |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/04/2011 : 11:02:49
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| I think this was TMS when it first started. I'm honestly starting to think I did something to myself by doing all of the "recommended treatments". I'm not sure where to go from here. My dentist has just told me I have a slight malocclusion caused by the bite guard that was given to me. |
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Cath
116 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2011 : 05:27:52
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My TMS started out as tension headaches and tinnitus 4 years ago which were daily and as such were diagnosed as chronic. My neurologist sent me to the TMJ clinic and they also told me that I had TMJ. My mouth started to close up and I couldn't eat anything hard or chewy. After 6 months of cognitive behavior therapy (which incidentally didn't work for me, but only made oother muscles tense and created further problems) and not being able to do my favorite things, as you describe, ie drawing, writing, working on my laptop, or even just reading a book, I went to see a jaw specialist, who told me that while there was essentially nothing wrong with my jaw joint he would give me a steroid injection into the joint and do some manipulation under anesthetic, which should solve my problem. By this time I could only open my mouth to one finger width wide. It was the worst decision of my life - after the minor op my pain escalated, I contracted some mystery infection and had a high fever for 2 weeks. My whole head and face felt on fire. I slowly recovered, but still had excruciating jaw, neck and shoulder pain. I then tried miuthguards to try to relax the muscles in my jaw which just made the neurological pain worse and I ended up with an open bite.
My next step was to throw away the mouth guards, which actually was a good decision and some of my pain subsided. I began John Barnes Myofacial Release with a wonderful gentle therapist, who helped me back to some sort of recovery and I can now open my mouth to almost 4 finger widths wide and eat most things apart from very hard food. But my neurological pain has never gone, and eventually spread down my back to my hips. My doctor diagnosed me with fibromyalgia earlier on this year. My Physiotherapist told me about Dr Sarno and TMS and I read his books. Everything in them pointed my symptoms to TMS and I have been journalling for 2 months now.
I can't believe that what started out as tension headaches escalated into such a monster, which is how I view my pain. I do sympathize with you Ghost, TMJ is not easy to deal with and the more anxious you become, the worse it gets. I try to relax as much as I can, but it's not easy, as the pain is always there. I am hoping like you must be that Dr Sarno's philosophy works for me. I also hope that my story prevents you from undergoing any unnecessary treatment, but we are all different and what works for some doesn't for others.
I'm sorry if this is a little incomprehensible in parts, but I still can't sit at a computer to type, so have to use one finger on my iPad. I don't know what it is about that head bent over a book or desk position, but it immediately makes the pain worse.
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2011 : 12:51:19
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Cath, just out of curiosity, how often do you exercise? I've been told that lack of exercise in my upper back/neck area is a big part of my problem, along with stress. I also have malocclusion. They're telling me I might have to get braces, because the mouth guards have messed my teeth up. I am also beginning to get an open bite, which really sucks, because I look like an idiot.
What was that old nursery rhyme?
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don't know how she swallowed a cow.
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog.
She swallowed the dog, to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
that wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly
I guess she'll die.
^ this is what TMS does to you if you don't take the bull by the horns so to speak. If I could just grasp that concept, I think I'd be okay. |
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TMJ and Mouthguards
