TMJ Treatment

I know TMJ is super common & probably should be on page #1 when compiling symptoms for a TMS diagnosis. I've been dealing the symptoms in varying severity and since adolescence. Stress and clenched jaw muscles of course always exacerbate things, even when I'm not grinding (that's stopped years ago) or tight in the jaw joints, it separates & clicks whenever I try to open my mouth wide enough to say, eat a large sandwich or get a minor dental procedure. Dental bills are wiping me out financially, and I'm typing this with a retainer/fake tooth that's been in my mouth for 6-7 months now while I wait for another implant. I have a lisp & my entire jaw has visibly shifted. Now I can't stand to be in the dentist chair more than 20-30 minutes at the most, and my teether are continuing to rot & break & fall out at an alarming rate.

The underlying autoimmune disease and lifelong corticosteroids are a big part of it as well, as what I'm describing is very common in people like me. Of course a large percentage of those people are also suffering from MBS, stemming from the stress and psychological impact of dealing with incurable chronic illness, and perhaps even more so from what it takes to deal with the impossibly broken, unaffordable, and inadequate healthcare system.

With all that said, I find myself in a place where I am seeking a more aggressive, invasive treatment for it now. This is coming from someone desperately fighting to stay off of the operating table for a number of other issues. There are very few specialists, available options are extraordinarily expensive with low chances of being covered by insurance, and that's if I am lucky enough to even find one who accepts is. I guess I'm posting here looking for someone in a similar situation. I see the parallel between this and say, someone considering spinal surgery for chronic LBP. After all of these years, and about as much experience dealing with TMS as you'll find here, I am still feeling like treating the symptoms is the only path I have.

Now am I spending 30 minutes doing jaw exercises while meditating and wearing my appliance religiously these days? No ... it's just that those things haven't moved the needle even a little. Now the severity of the symptoms definitely changes, but not the range of motion or clicking/separation when I open my mouth...and I definitely focus on it more when it's tense, or when other symptoms are less prominent, but it's not like a TMS flare of the back where I can loosen up and "just do it" like Dr. Sarno always advised. If I try to eat a tough steak, flaring or not, I'm going to be in pain when I'm done, if I can get through the meal at all.

Sorry, I tend to be a little too verbose... using this forum as a journal or therapeutic outlet.. but if anyone is still reading & has any ideas...

Thank you

 

@eightball776
I think part of your trouble getting over this is seeing it as TMS, because, you are not.
You are doing jaw exercises which have a purpose of "curing" or "fixing" - it is not doing "the work" which is whatever (which usually means home journaling) to get to the source of your inner rage and anger plus other emotions AND practicing what some call "outcome independence" or what Sarno basically said is just doing it.
You eat a steak and your jaw hurts...SO WHAT? It's gonna hurt for awhile, and no matter what, you ate the steak. You don't have to "loosen up" you don't have to anything. NOTHING is expected except that you just do whatever it is you choose to do or eat.
Your jaw clicks: SO WHAT, you move on with your day.
When you meditate it's not to "fix" the jaw, as a matter of fact, what you are doing is SUPER HYPER focusing on the jaw. Meditation is to meditate - it's to separate yourself from the physical focus, and your stressors and just "be". Other people can do this while doing things like running, or playing guitar or whatever they do to zone out of their thinking mind and obsessive thoughts.
"outcome independance" is a breakdown of what Sarno terms as just doing it. You can go at his method whole hog a la Ozanich or you can work more slowly eg. Eat a few cubes of steak, congratulate yourself for attempting it and move on with the rest of your dinner. Next week try 5 cubes.
I think you are stuck in some of the 5 F's - here's an explanation: https://mytmsjourney.com/resources/the-five-f-s-of-tms-mindset-retraining/ (The five 'F's of TMS mindset retraining)

 

I had TMJ, my jaw was stiff, clicking, and popping. I had pain and tension from my jaw that radiated all around my head.

I tried everything from teeth guards and basically every TMJ stretching video you can find on youtube. None of them worked.

I still have popping and clicking when I open my jaw. My jaw doesn't close and open in an even line. But guess what? I don't have pain anymore. I am free of TMJ. The difference was accepting that the source was TMS and gradually reducing my stress and tension levels, because muscular tension can cause TMJ pain.

And my wife has popping and clicking too but never any pain or discomfort. That confirmed to me that the source of pain was not structural but emotinal/stress induced.

Stop watching youtube videos about TMJ stretches because the problem is not structural - all that does is reinforce in your brain there's something structurally wrong.

 

It seems like this is the heart of what you're asking for here--looking for help with finding an aggressive course of treatment that does not involve surgery. That is something to pursue with a doctor or in a health-care setting, and not here within this forum. Be careful, because any well-meaning advice you might get here is not from a medical professional.

More likely, you'll get folks responding with advice on how to treat this if you do identify it as TMS. But, that's not where you're at in this present moment.

I wish you well--this is a difficult spot to be in... It's just that asking for treatment suggestions here isn't going to be helpful for you or for anyone who responds with specific suggestions.

 

Through all of my work with Dr. Sarno, I became pretty comfortable with my ability to treat symptoms with the understanding that finding relief from exercises and other modalities doesn't mean you aren't able to process/treat TMS in a psychological-first way. I was lucky enough to be a patient of his, and experience miraculous results 1st-hand. That was quite a long time ago now. I am definitely a more complex case in certain ways. I was struggling with arthritis from Crohn's during adolescence, and over time developed TMS in part because of symptoms of my disease that were very much like TMS, causing a whole lot of repressed anger about being a sick kid. These days when you throw in the steroids & other meds, persistent depression, lengthy periods of inactivity, and more, my viewpoint is that exercising, stretching, massage, whatever - I'll take the relief where I can get it, while remaining aware of my brain's ability to cause trouble. The shoulder thing is weird for a few reasons, but TMS being the primary cause or not, strengthening isn't ever going to be a bad thing...unless it didn't improve at all and I jumped on an operating table as a result. At least that's been my perspective. The good news is that it has been feeling better, though the steroids are definitely part of that. The biggest challenge is that the mental healthcare I really need seems out of reach, and finding someone who really understands this stuff & is also affordable ... well, it's easier to find a unicorn.