Jaw pain

[CLB26]

Hi All,

I was wondering, has anyone else had jaw pain throughout their treatment? I originally had braces to fix my TMJ ... long story but the dentist screwed up and I had to get braces on again to fix his mess. The only thing that he did right was I wasn't having jaw pain really anymore. Well, I am about 6 months into my new treatment and up until now my jaw has been pretty good but now I am having pain again. About a week ago, what the ortho did totally changed my bite. It feels really off. I am worried that this is just the beginning of constant jaw pain all over again . Once he aligns the bite better do you think that my pain will improve again? I'm going to mention this to him next time I see him but I was just wondering if anybody else has experienced pain during their treatment.

[CLB26]

Anyone?

[crooked rory]

I am in the same boat. My bite is shifting around, and the TMJ issues I have seem to be getting worse. More frequent migranes, jaw making grating noises rather than pops when I yawn, earaches. I have a skeleto/dental underbite though, and was told things could get much worse before they can improve. Jaw pain was one of the things that prompted me to seek treatment to begin with. My jaw just gets sore and tired chewing, and I can only chew one side of my mouth without pain.

[TMJJill]

I've had my braces for 9 weeks now. I'm in treatment for my TMJD. So far, the experience I've had with the braces themselves has been OK. I've had more problems with my TMJD though. My problems are worse at night when my jaw falls back towards my ear when I lay down. I end up with lots of pain from the muscle spasms caused by this. Even though I'm on schedule for my braces check every 6 weeks, I've had about 7 appointments so far trying to get some temporary relief. My dentist assures me that things will eventually get better. I have to have faith in this. On the flip side, when I went in yesterday because of my bruxism/TMJ issues, my dentist indicated I'm way ahead of schedule already. Maybe there is hope...

By the way, I'm in a repositioning splint during the day to help my bite and using elastics at night to help keep my jaw in proper position. It has helped some. I'm wearing elastics on my back molars as well to help erupt my teeth to help with my bite. So far it seems to be helping.

I wish you well.

[Tyud500]

Throughout my treatment my jaw hurt and stopped hurting. I think it is normal for the jaw to hurt for TMJ sufferers as your bite may become worse before it becomes better.

[ArchWired28]

I have had the same story, dentist screwed up and I soon ended up with terrible TMJ pain. It got very-very bad, my teeth, jaw, neck and all the way to the lower back. A nightmare. I later got the top braces and pain lessened in a few weeks. It stopped alltogether when I got the lowers. Now, about 2 months with the lowers, it kicks in again. I also feel that my bite constantly changes and it coincides with the pain spurrs. Interestingly, it is now on the opposite side of the jaw mainly. Although I don't know for sure, but I think that my muscles got out of balance and now they normalize, that is what I hope I also see that my jaw is kind of slanted, so I am assuming that I will be through pain again as it comes back to normal.
That is my experience, but based on that, I suiggest you wait a little and see. I know I hate this waiting game myself, but unfortunately, that is what we have to do with braces. I wish you feel better soon!