r/TMDnotTMJ

I am a retired TMD treating dentist. My second, non-paying career, now in my eighties, is sharing my knowledge of 50 years as a dentist treating the pain patient. Fibromyalgia and TMD can run together and confuse diagnosis and treatment.

As a dentist, by law, I could not diagnose or treat fibromyalgia, but I can tell you that many, many of my TMD patients also had MD-diagnosed fibromyalgia. Just because someone has TMD, it doesn't mean they have fibro but if someone has fibro, a high percentage are also going to have TMD.

I am inviting fibromyalgia patients to start a journey of learning about TMD by visiting https://www.reddit.com/r/TMDnotTMJ/. There are also forty podcasts on the subject at https://www.youtube.com/@OpenUp-ATMJDiscussion-w7l

MDs are not trained in TMD so it is wise to educate yourself; you don't deserve all the pain.

This is me when I bite down. Only my back lower teeth touch. Someone on here told me it was a torqued mandible and the orthodontist could fix it using non invasive treatment. I’m so tired of living this way and so scared but anxious to see what the orthodontist says…can anyone relate to my kind of bite issue? How hard/easy will treatment be? I’ve been suffering so much mentally/physically lately. Just had to have a new crown put in.

This one has a lot less contact- only my two back molars versus 8 total teeth on my old one. My Dental hygienist tried to grind it down more, but it isn’t fitting the way I’d hoped. Im having sensitivity and jaw popping. I’m seeing a new Dentist soon, but any pointers on how to address this with him?

I had problems with my jaw prior to the bike accident. In the morning my jaw would be locked or if I was in a laying down position and touched my teeth together, my jaw would also lock.

I went straight over the handlebars and chin first onto concrete. Now if I open my mouth my lower jaw goes to one side and I can only open my mouth to a certain point (which isn’t very wide)

Here is an X Ray I had done by a dentist.
Is there obvious/visual abnormality? Or could it be to do with muscles and whatnot

This is going to be a long post but I am so desperate.

In December 2025 my entire family got flu A. For work I needed to get the flu shot so when they got sick, even though I was highly exposed to them, I didn’t get sick. My husband had picked up the flu from a work Christmas party.

By the time he started feeling sick (maybe a day later or so) I started feeling this mild, deep pressure underneath the corner of my jaw on the right side. It almost felt like something was pushing up under my jaw and I could feel it in my throat and almost under my right side of my tongue.

Because it was the holidays I went to the walk in just to make sure I wasn’t coming down with anything. All my tests came back negative, the doctor felt around my neck and throat - nothing. He said that pressure I felt under my tongue and in my throat was inflammation and it was would away.

Fast forward a few days (Christmas night) and at like 10pm I can’t take the pain/pressure under my jaw anymore and I go to the ER. All labs were normal, they also couldn’t feel or see anything either. The ER doc told me to find a dentist that was open the next day and go rule out an abscess. The closest one I could find that was open was an hour away but I was able to get in, get imaging and get an exam. All dental related issues were negative. The dentist obviously finds it weird and tells me to go into Boston where there is a walk-in ENT.

I go to Boston that night, I see an ENT. He cannot feel anything in my neck area. He scopes me and notes that all he sees is some bilateral redness and irritation in my nasopharyngeal area but otherwise unremarkable. I follow up with outpatient ENT the next week- same thing. They can’t find the source of the pressure. At this point the pressure is actually making my ear feel so full it almost felt like an ear infection, but there was never an infection.

They set me up with a neck ultrasound. I’ve attached that report here. My dentist does a cone beam CT, unremarkable. I then call my friend who is an ENT and he has me come in and looks himself externally and up my nose and into my throat with a scope. Unremarkable. However he decides to ask me about TMJ to which I tell him I’ve intermittently felt my jaw crack slightly here and there throughout my life but only once recently. He sticks his pinky fingers in my ears, asked me to open my mouth and my jaw on the right side cracks louder than it’s ever cracked in my life. I tell him it’s never done that before.

I get a TMJ MRI. That comes back showing that the discs on both the left and right side sit anterior with my mouth closed. On the left side in that moment of the scan the disc reduced, but on the right side it didn’t. I have never had issues opening my mouth in my life.

They decide my issues are TMJ related. I’m paying for TMJ PT and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

I’m wondering if the TMJ MRI findings are incidental and maybe have nothing to do with what I’m experiencing. I can’t find other people who have swollen lymph nodes on US, and pressure underneath the corner of their jaw into their throat.

I know this is a stretch but this pressure started so abruptly in December when everyone around me was sick. Given the redness and swelling in my nasopharyngeal area I’m wondering if it’s possible that flu A entered my respiratory track, got stopped by my immune system in that nasopharyngeal area, my lymphnodes in the area of the ultrasound stopped it where it was, they reacted and for some reason now the pressure I feel is that these lymphnodes are still somewhat swollen and because it’s such a tight space under the jaw, it puts pressure on everything around it. Maybe the TMJ issue alone never caused them to swell, but this flu exposure primed them and now that they deal with a slight TMJ issue they are having a hard time going back down to normal size.

Sometimes this even makes it feel like I have a sore throat on the right side of my throat.

I am so desperate, has anyone else encountered anything like this?????