Originally Posted by Aaron

Hi Zartgirl,

I can relate perfectly as I had serious TMJ when I was younger. From about 14-16 had serious stressful events and also head traumas, grinding teeth at nght...more like clinching not really grinding. Headaches, stress, etc... got back to states around 18-19 or so, jaw hurt so bad, popped, clicked, it hurt to eat food. Couldn't hardly open my mouth very much because of the pain. Muscles were knotted up in my jaw making my bit uneven.

Had the same plastic mouthpiece. But doctor tried to tell me if I didn't wear it it would get worse and they would eventually have to do surgery by going in below my ear/jaw stuff drilling in, scraping cleaning it out and injecting steroids, etc...

I wore the mouthpiece for a while but the conclusion I came to for myself was that it would make it worse because it only meant that I didn't have to bite down as far to cause the same tension so it made it easier for me to cause the same damage with less effort. I stopped wearing it and refused to listen to them and it healed up by itself. In a year or less, 100% healed.

I am not recommending you stop wearing it or anything but I would say whatever you can do to make sure that your sleep is very very good and whatever you can do to stay stress free. If you aren't on the deep sleep booster, you might want to try that and as something that may be helpful, maybe try the just relax module for a while to see if it relieves some of the tension.

Is it possible you're muscles are just knotted up in your jaw because if so, you might be able to find a smart professional who can help do some minor massage work to work them out. It is slow and gradual but helpful. If you're hips are out of alignment because the jaw can throw the whole body out of alignment, have you tried shoe inserts to help correct that until your jaw is more in alignment?