fam I’ve been having bad TMJ pain to the point where I’m wearing my NTI splint during the day and using compresses on my masseter yes I take magnesium yes I am stressed no I will not meditate but any other recs welcome
Discussion
Have you tried magnesium and or meditation? 🤔
Acupuncture, acupressure. Make sure they work on the scalenes and anterior neck.
I’ve always been curious about acupuncture, but heard mixed opinions
Keep an eye out for the ones that first evaluate you and show you how you are "locked" by seemingly trying pushing your foot left or right as you lay on your back and then they touch your opposite shoulder with a finger and "unlock" you, now it moves!!! Pay attention to how they move the foot when locked vs unlock - like a pick pocket redirect of attention scam. Easy to notice if you pay attention. Good luck!
Well it depends upon the quality of the therapist, so I'm sure some people have poor results. I am a doctor of Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, so if you have any questions let me know.
Just noticing when you are feeling stressed is a great start.
TMJ is really difficult to address without better stress management. Are you making time for the things you love to do? New parents typically sacrifice their social life for their new baby but sometimes you have to be a little selfish and leave the baby with Walker for a girls outing
does a conference count? 😂🥹 I think part of it is also the heavy lifting, he’s a big toddler and I feel like my neck/jaw all stay in constant flex from carrying and wrangling lol
I think it does count if you’re going there for fun. If it’s for work and networking then not so much. I used to work with kids and my shoulders would hurt after 🫠
Maybe instead of picking him up to hold him you could sit on the floor and have him come to you for a hug? That way you’re not picking him up as often
Sport or exercise in the evening to take your mind off things while generating Serotonin really works for me.
https://youtu.be/L1HCG3BGK8I?si=mGKKsRrvKABBCM-H I found these exercises incredibly helpful for releasing tension which causes TMJ pain. There is science to back up how trauma is stored in your nervous system. Cranial nerves and the vagus nerve are a rabble hole that might be worth going down.
will try and report back, thanks!
What is TMJ pain? lol maybe I’m the only one trying to follow this
Nice to meet you 🤝😉
I read some literature on this a while back and my takeaway was that surgery often doesn't work (and sometimes makes it worse), and most dentists and maxillofacial surgeons have no good answers. Of course, I didn't read everything ever. That was just my impression.
My medical approach if I had this issue:
My first exploration would be light physical therapy if there is any, inflammation reduction, and addressing what's irritating that area so much if possible. A mouth guard is a good start. Wearing your splint more often may actually help with that.
No gum chewing or other tough foods for a while. Probably forever, as joint problems tend to come back once you have them.
Periodically relax all the muscles in your upper body. Like you're melting into whatever you're sitting or laying on. Let your jaw completely relax. Your lips will probably part and you'll probably start feeling a tingling/vibration in your entire head as you travel down to the next, relaxing all muscles. I do this for neck pain and headaches and they've improved a lot.
I’ve completely stopped chewing on that side which has been quite an adjustment but agreed I don’t want to go super invasive. Light therapy is a good idea, been keen to try and no risks.
Bob and Brad on YT are great. I've followed them for years and they've always seemed evidence based and knowledgeable. They helped with some of my own chronic joint pains.
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Bob+and+brad+tmj
Nostr right now will probably yield more useless bullshit than anything, unfortunately. There's a lot of quackery on here.
Relaxing your jaw like this may close your airway a bit, so use a recliner or something similar to breathe better if necessary.
Not conventional but maybe worth looking into further:
Are you drinking lots of coffee?
Cutting back on that may help. The one person I know who had TMJ felt relief after a few days of not having caffeine. After that they still drink coffee here and there but mostly stick to a single serving of matcha.
I personally found reducing caffeine helps with all sorts of things: better sleep, lower feelings of stress, feeling calmer, etc.
This stuff is amazing when I’m stressed
Nice to meet you 😉🤝
I would give strict carnivore diet a try (ground beef / butter / eggs to minimize chewing)
I've eaten only one meal a day (OMAD) on this diet for over a year now, because it's so nourishing. It makes 24hr intermittent fasting a breeze since you're full the whole next day.
I think that will be the ticket for giving your jaw that extended 24hr rest every day! 
i can confirm that eating beef, aiming to slightly overfill yourself, results in whole days you don't feel like eating
i think the main part of what does it is the tallow, though, it is way better than butter
i also cook ground beef in tallow and feed it to my cat (technically it's veal, so it's not so great without using tallow) and it makes his fur so silky and shiny, tuna doesn't do such a good job. he's also got dental problems too... he already had 4 of his teeth taken out and a giant lump of hyperplasic gum tissue and he's basically fine now, but has a persistent cough, gonna be running a full air filter regime next and got 3 pots of lawn grass growing up that will be inside one at a time to give him whatever it is cats get from it
i'm not sure exactly if it's the same thing, but i get a weird pain in the joint at the side of my jaw sometimes from certain kinds of sugars, i know for sure maltodextrin is one of them, it's an approved additive and basically it's in almost everything that has a flavor these days... it also causes me problems with my dental nerves, which i suffered with for years, the only treatment i could find was the steadily disappearing sensodyne toothpaste with potassium nitrate in it but simply cutting out most foods that have sugar in them fixed most of the problem and i rarely get dental nerve pain now
i'm gonna suggest that probably part of the problem has to do with specific types of sugars causing inflammation in the joint, this is part of the reason why i have also found a lot of benefit in carnivore, but it's damn near impossible to find beef here in the EUSSR anywhere, almost like they have deliberately tried to eliminate this important, healing food, to make us suffer and die of chronic disease. they don't even cover the real subject, and pretend it's all about protein but why beef is so good for you is the fats, more so than any other part of the flesh, the collagen is also quite important, and both things definitely help with joint problems
i also have a knee joint that gets wonky now and then, for a few weeks recently it was hard for me to climb the stairs because every time i put weight on the knee it was pain
i think what that was about had to do with seed oils, because i had been eating stuff with rapeseed and sunflower seed oils in it prior to that, and since then i have cut those out, more or less completely
Sorry to hear. Dr Jack Kruse OG bitcoiner and decentralized MD - he’s expert at solving medical mysteries in ways that improve your health in all areas. His X profile may be have something for you. Whatever it is it will be nature based. A common recommendation is pay attention to your light cycles (circadian) and non native EMF - have you had where you sleep / work measured?
Wishing you speedy solutions!
Mewing and intra oral massage by a good massage therapist
Cbd oil
Weed?
Roll-on DMSO.
(You’ll smell a bit like aged garlic, so maybe after the conference…)
Big issue for some people. Surgery is tricky to navigate. My insurance plan as a medical student specifically forbade covering surgery for TMJ. We occasionally do MRI for TMJ, but it rarely comes up. I hope you find something better than muscle relaxers, but all I know is you are not alone.
I had really bad TMJ issues, and it turned out that I had a narrow upper jaw and some crowding. Invisalign largely fixed the issue. Maybe check out an orthodontist?