TMJ Help Site

A couple years ago, i had pain in my jaw and it was very tight and would pop when opening my mouth. I went to the doctor and they told me I had TMJ. I got a night guard because it was caused from grinding my teeth while I was sleeping, soon after I started using it the TMJ went away. About a week ago I had an incident where I took a blow to my jaw and I think it was actually dislocated… Now I’m feeling the same symptoms as before when I had TMJ.. I read that when your jaw is dislocated your jaw muscles will enflame and tighten, so I’m guessing it’s because of this… I started using the night guard again because I noticed I’ve been grinding my teeth now… I’ve also been under a lot of stress lately, I guess my question is will this go away once the muscles heal from the dislocation? I’ve been eating soft foods and taking motrin but it still doesn’t seem to be really helping… I’m just looking for any insight you may have at all… thanks so much for your help
also I just remembered the fact that my night guard doesn’t fit well because I had it made right after I got braces off… When I wake up in the morning it feels like it shifted my teeth around like a retainer if you know what I mean, it seems like that would almost make it worse because of the fact that tmj can be caused by small misalignments of your teeth, any thoughts on that?

There are a variety of reasons for jaw pain. It’s important to find the real source of the problem. Then you can go about finding the proper care to improve the situation.