Hello everyone!!!!
My first time posting on this sub and wanted to share my story for anyone else who’s been struggling. I’m a 3rd year medical student who’s been under chronic stress since I began. About a year ago I started having mild tmj pain and bc of my schedule and how busy I was, I ignored it. However it progressively got worse in the last 5 months to the point where my quality of life had deteriorated dramatically. I would wake up with horrible pain on either side and eventually started losing my hearing. I could sleep obscene amounts of hours and would be fatigued. Then the gut wrenching headaches started and I would be out of commission the entire day. I noticed that when I would wake up I’d be clenching my jaw extremely hard. I still hadn’t seen an OMFS bc I was studying for my board exam and had no time to take out. After i passed my exam last month I ended up seeing a doctor for it. He initially prescribed me meloxicam and cyclobenzaprine and gave me generic advice on how to manage which I was already doing such as warm compress. However the meds didn’t do anything to help and the only thing that did was prednisone. I saw him again and said that since I grind/clench my teeth at night a mouth guard and some steroid trigger point injections would be most beneficial to me. My insurance did not cover the mouth guard so I initially decided to not go thru with it. The injections helped for a few days but wore off eventually. The flares up kept getting worse and I bit the bullet and decided to pay out of pocket for the mouth guard. I was so fed up and had been so depressed bc of this pain i considered the mouth guard a last resort before I gave up. I got my teeth scanned, and got fitted for the mouth guard. It’s been TWO DAYS. ONLY TWO DAYS since I started wearing it and my pain is gone. It’s just GONE. I woke up this morning for the first time in over a year feeling refreshed, happy, and pain free. My ears popped open and I could hear again. I urge anyone who struggles with teeth clenching/grinding related tmj pain to immediately get fitted for a mouth guard. It will turn ur life around.
TLDR: tmj pain and associated symptoms bc of teeth clenching/grinding cured with custom mouth guard after only 2 days of use