Hi Racheal,

My name is Joseph.  I have suffered from chronic pain from TMJD for many years--though I am now in a healing stage.  The cause of my disorder was an injury to my right jaw when I was only eight years old.  I know "exactly" what kind of pain you are experiencing.  I am 44 years old and I have been in pain of some sort--due to TMJD--for all of my adult life.  Over the years I visited many different dentists who claimed they knew how to treat TMJ problems and received treatment from them.  Sadly, however, I beleive their inadequate attempts to treat me only led to a worsening of my condition.  And anytime I mentioned TMJD to any of my many medical doctors they refused to even discuss it.  Time and time again, all I heard was--"see a dentist"--and, as I previously stated, that route also produced lousy results.

Around the age of thirty, I finally found a doctor who knew what he was doing.  I owe him my life--he definitely saved me from extreme desperation.  In my case the treatment was, at times, more painful than what I had previously known; but I trusted him and he proved himself right in the long run.  Thank God!

As far as sleeping goes... I slept on a couch for many, many years. The reason I started doing this was because I had found that if I could get myself to be able to sleep without rolling over in my sleep then I would, mostly likely, not wake up in pain.  (Sad, huh?). Anyway, I wedged pillows on both sides of my head in order to keep my head from moving too much.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes I was up all night with tears rolling out of my eyes and doing everything I could to not move a single muscle in my face.  Those were some really tough years.

The key to recovery is to be extremely discriminate with your doctors.  Most of them know "nothing" about this problem.

I have two doctors who are solving my problem: Dr. D. Gary wolford and Dr. James Hilton. 

Good Luck to you. And...

Hang in there!

Joseph Neuville

Nikki

5/ 4/09 3:44pm

Hi Joseph. My name is Nikki. I am a 33 year old mother of 3. I am in tears right now just reading your post because I have lived with this for so long and not knowing why. It's a relief to know I am not the only one that understands the pain.  I am in constant pain. Constant headaches, back aches, and neck and shoulder stiffness and pain.  I have recently (1 yr ago) noticed ringing in my ear/ears. I also have fatigue. I feel like i'm 80yrs. old! I also have a LOUD pop under my left ear when i open my mouth.  I have had this 'pop' since I was struck in the jaw by an ex boyfriend....7 years ago.  I can feel that my jaw is way out of line. It's so painful. Recently, the headaches and pain have become unbearable. I was suspicious that my popping jaw had something to do with it. Fed up with the pain, I did an internet search for jaw alignment.  I quickly realized that I have a lot of the symptoms listed for TMJ. Although I am happy to have probably figured out what all this is being caused from, I am dis heartened because I feel I will have to live with this pain for the rest of my life. I only work part time and don't bring home very much money and my job(which is going out of business June 1st) does not offer insurance. Since I am married I will not qualify for state assistance. I am very discouraged by your testimony. I feel like I might have to live with this the rest of my life. Due to my financial situation, I will not be able to find a good physician to help me.  Can you please give me any advice for self pain relieving treatments you know about. I am glad to have read about not to sleep on your stomach. I will not sleep on my stomach anymore now.  Thank you.

My symptoms are just like Rachel's and I feel the same way about doctors.  Also, I do not have insurance which makes me more hesitant.  I have been experiencing pain in my Jaw since Jan. 18 when I was eating something (turkey wrap) and the jaw joint seemed to give.  It was very painful at the time and knocked when I opened my mouth wide.  I asked 3 dentists and an ENT about it and they best advice was to take 3 motrin 3 times/day, apply moist heat for 3 min. 3 time/ day, sleep on my back or at least not on the bad side.  This has all seemed to help but there is still pain at times, when I open my mouth suddenly, moved it from side to side or yawn too wide.  It also seems to affect my bite.  I finally went to my doctor about it and she referred me to an oral surgeon.  However, they do not think that there is cause for surgery.  I hope that it will eventually correct itself.  The ENT said to continue taking the Motrim.

 Mary

TMJJOE

5/ 4/09 5:17pm

Try finding a good Chiroprator.  Could be that you simply slipped the disc in your jaw.