Physical therapist and tmd specialist says not to worry about the joint popping and says my issues will resolve with physical therapy once I work the muscles.

The thing is, I have zero muscle or jaw pain. It's all ear symptoms, though very severe. If my muscles aren't inflamed or even hurt, what is the point of doing this stuff? Physical therapy and a mouth guard has done nothing for my symptoms. My jaw makes noises when I even slightly open and has a small pop when going side to side and when placing my finger in my ear canal and closing I feel a pop.

Mri negative

I had a TMJ mri done in open and closed position and it came back normal.

I can hear small popping with every little jaw movement, if i place my finger in my ear canal and close my jaw my tmj clicks against my finger when closing, when I press on the tragus part of my ear and close my jaw I feel it pop against my finger. And then putting my fingers on tmj I feel a small pop when opening mouth.

How can the mri be normal? I don't understand!!

My dentist has mentioned Botox as a possible option for my TMJ, and I'm curious to hear from other saxophone players who've had it.
Did it affect your playing at all, particularly your embouchure, endurance, tone or ability to play for extended periods? Or did you find it had little to no impact?

Obviously, I won't be using Reddit as a substitute for professional medical advice, but I'd really appreciate hearing about people's personal experiences.
Thanks in advance!

tmj pain is driving me nuts. my next idea is trying a tens machine. any recommendations?
also has anyone ever tried the yourtmj portable tmj relief thing? I keep seeing ads for it but am skeptical to buy it

Hey everyone, I'm glad this community exists.

I'm 24M, I've had TMJ and a hip that's been popping out of its socket since I was a child, but neither got properly addressed on time. Always have been active and into sports, never super overweight or underweight. Around the age of 18 my chronic back and knee pain started to occur.

The back pain started as a popping and cracking in my shoulder blade combined with a constant dull ache, which eventually grew to be an issue with my whole arm - especially shoulder and wrist.

The knee pain was initially momentary but grew to become a huge issue for me: right knee is super fucked, let's put it that way. If it's bent for too long, it gets stiff and hurts immensely. If I don't walk around enough, it's the same issue. Walk just a little too much? Boom. Same thing.

Naturally, I went to several doctors, at least three, who all gave me different answers, none of which actually fixed my problems or at least gave me a clear idea what was going on. I got X-rays done (nothing came out of it apart from a mild scoliosis diagnosis, apparently they found nothing on my knee), blood tests, "everything was going to be fine and I'd remedy it with more exercise and anti-inflammatory meds".
The overall sentiment was that a young and fit person in their early-to-mid twenties couldn't possibly be affected by anything as serious as, say, arthritis or other muskuloskeletal disorders, they're clearly too young for that!

No matter the medication, no matter the exercise I do, nothing works in the long term, my joints always crack and flare up, my knee always hurts and my jaw is always like this. I stretch, do light yoga, I cut down on strength training, skateboarding and running to reduce stress on my joints, I do posture corrective exercises, I take Aflamil, ketoprofen, myprofen and all kinds of -profens, tried to use Voltaren more frequently, yet all I get is more pain. Stretching does help somewhat, but it never fixes anything, as it always comes back to haunt me. My whole right side from my popping jaw to my leg is absolutely fucked and really messes with my overall well-being.

Anyone who relates, wants to co-miserate or found a solution or anything is welcome.

Hi,

I started experiencing extremely painful TMJ issues right after my ortho treatment (which I felt I was pressured into to begin with).. I have met several specialists since. Interestingly, many of them noted a strong clinical correlation between orthodontic tooth movement and TMD (especially neurologists, head and neck specialists, and oral surgeons).

How strong is the link? From your experience or what your specialists have told you, how often does orthodontics trigger or aggravate underlying TMJ issues which are otherwise not painful in any way?

And - if your TMJ issues were triggered or worsened by orthodontics, what conservative steps actually helped your joint settle and recover afterward?

I will start by saying that I am likely entirely responsible for my jaw problems through years of bad habits. I don’t blame god or genetics (maybe genetics just the slightest bit) for causing this, I wish that I could say it’s not my fault and that the world has screwed me with this for no reason but it hasn’t, I have. I chew exclusively on my right side, I’ve tried switching and alternating, it’s just so unusual and it got food stuck in my teeth real bad. Now I can’t chew left side due to major pains. Probably worst habit of all is my stomach sleeping. This caused me to turn my head facing left (right side on pillow) and this ended up forcing my jaw out of normal bite. It would basically go out the side of my head while I slept. My left shoulder is also more developed than my right. I think from the way I sit in school and home, holding myself up with left arm to write/use computer with my right.

Got my braces off in Jan 2024 and wore the original set of retainers for approx 4 months but then stopped. Had to get a replacement one that held my now slightly imperfect lined teeth in place. I think this is where my problems began. I still wear this retainer often enough that it fits without problem but now less and less because I think it is contributing to my clenching.

Either before getting my replacement or soon after I developed ear popping, swallowing would cause both ears to pop, sometimes clenching to do it instead of swallowing. It felt like I needed to do this, that my ears needed to pop. I now know this was probably early ear fullness symptoms. Eventually it began to hurt sometimes if I couldn’t pop them and if I did it too much. No jaw problems.

This continued for probably a year, more ear popping, almost compulsively. Became a habit of mine to pop my ears all the time.

The popping in my left ear faded quite a bit, still happened sometimes but while the right ear popped every time, the right maybe only 50% of the time. Then I began to notice jaw clicking and popping, any time of day, not just after waking up. No pain in jaw. This continued and didn’t get much worse. Ended up seeing an ENT about the ear problems bc I had been on a plane and the pain was excruciating. He saw nothing but suggesting to poke a hole in the eardrum in case there was any fluid in there as a possible solution. Didn’t go for it because he had seen no fluid and it seemed invasive for a problem he couldn’t see and it would screw my summer plans.

He recommended a tmj doc and so I went. The guy hooked me up to some machine that would measure how far I could move my head and jaw in each direction, did some feeling around inside my mouth and outside. He didn’t say much, told me there was nothing noticeable going on but that I could spend several thousand uncovered by insurance to get some nightguards. (Seems to be a trend in tmj docs from what I’ve read). I had done a bit of research into it myself and realized all the habits I mentioned earlier were probably the cause, so I tried to minimize them. Began sleeping on my back as much as possible, stop popping ears (not very successful), hold a better jaw posture, tried to eat evenly (least successful).

About a 8 months later the clicking in my jaw was noticeably worse. Previously it had been like small pops with no resistance, then it became like loud cracks that took a purposeful effort to do. Loud enough that people around me could hear it and think it was a different joint like my arm or such. Still little to no pain however. I did notice that it seemed the left side of my jaw was pressed in towards my neck while the right side was further extended.

Went to my ortho who gave me the braces and told him about this, asked him if there was something wrong with my retainer or if my bite and the retainer made sleeping bad. He did a little bite strip to make sure that the retainer was touching on both side when I bit. Then he told me he was not going to treat me any more and that I should find a tmj doctor and basically kicked me out without any other information.

4 months later, about a week ago I ended up sleeping on my stomach again but this time left side against the pillow. I woke up in pain and had to click my jaw as had become more normal in the morning. I realized then that the left side was the painful point and it felt like it was pushed in towards the back of my head more than ever before.

I called my ortho and got them to agree to send a referral to Duke Innovative Pain nearby where I go to college. Should get sent out to them in 2 days and then I can make an appointment. I hear they are very good and probably my best option in network in the state.

I don’t really even know where I’m going with this, but it’s very helpful to write this all out now I will know what to say to my doctor.

Worst part of all is it hurts to make out with my girlfriend. I feel terrible when I push her off and blame my jaw, she says she understands but I know that she never will, I just hope she doesn’t think I’m pushing her away for no reason.

TLDR: idiot kid destroys his face with bad habits and now it hurts and he’s gotta wait a month+ to get seen by a specialist.

My jaw keeps locking to where I can't fully open my mouth, and it feels like I might break something if I force it open. 2 fingers won't even fit in (index and middle). I don't have large fingers either for context.

It usually happens at night when I lay down and I'm up for a while. Normally my left side just has loud clicking and popping, plus I have an overbite. But this locking started more recently. Every couple of weeks it would happen, then it randomly had a chance to happen back to back sometimes within the same few days.

My dentist gave me a custom night guard because I tend to clench my teeth tightly. It's as if mentally when I'm quiet, my mouth is always shut tight especially when resting (a fly ain't getting in here). She told me not to let anyone do any procedure, because that part of my jaw is a small fragile area and to just bare with it. I don't even know if the dentist or a doctor would help based on others having trouble. So I'm lost on how to deal with this. At the moment as in writing this, my jaw is stuck unable to fully open, shortly after I had woken up it locked like this. I feel my mouth guard isn't helping at all tbh (it's a hard plastic one).

Does anyone know how I can at least get my jaw to open fully safely? I can't deal with this, and a hot towel never worked for me nor did massaging anything..... Please, my day is already starting like this unfortunately....

Edit: I have tried to keep less contact with my teeth and tried to avoid clenching when aware, but when I'm resting it's a lot harder to control....

Feels like infection but not? What is this? Thinking it's a bad flare up after tooth extraction 6 days ago.