Twitching/Spasms in cheeks/jaw from TMJ. Anyone Else?

Hello all, 21 year old here with an aggravating issue onset by TMJ. So about two years ago, I first started experiencing TMJ. My jaw popped and for about 8 months, I just dealt with it clicking and sticking every time I opened it. I finally saw a Doc and he made me a mouth-guard for the top teeth to balance my bite. It worked great for about 8 months until he made a poor adjustment shaving a lot off the left side and almost none off the right side (no clue why). I trusted him. It threw my jaw completely off and I regret to this day not questioning his logic with the adjustment then and there. Both sides of jaw began clicking rather than just the left and my lower right teeth are now very slightly further forward than my left. He had a stroke and his practice closed quickly after his adjustment which explains why I was never able to get this fixed. Since this happened, I've been dealing with facial twitching in my cheeks and jaw whenever I smile.

Symtoms:
-Cheeks start shaking uncontrollably when I smile for longer than 10 seconds
-I feel minor twitches/spasms every time I go through the action from straight face into smile. It has a very unsecured, less tight/locked in feeling your jaw is meant to have when you're smiling.
-It gets really bad when I drink coffee so I've had to cut that out of my life for the past 4 months.

This, as minor as it may sound, has killed my social life. Any time I'm talking to anyone, even family, when I smile in a conversation I start to get the twitches and they quickly worsen. Sounds like something you can adapt to but trust me, I've been trying for 6 months and absolutely no progress. It freezes me up and I have to make sure I keep a straight face and not joke around as I usually do.

I've been wearing a new, very pricey TMJ appliance from a new doc since August that goes on the top and bottom teeth. It's made of hard material and forces your jaw to smoothly glide left or right when you clinch at night. While this has lessened my clicking and helped with my twitching a tad bit, the twitching is still severely there.

Sorry for the long, annoying post but I'm hoping to find someone else who's dealt with the twitching/spasms and found a cure. If anyone has any ideas as to what I could try doing to fix this, I'm all ears. Perhaps trying to exercise my jaw by forcing smiles as long as I can when I'm alone? Do I need to find a doctor that can get my jaw back to perfectly straight as it was? Shoulf I start stretching it so it loosens up?

Thank you for reading and I appreciate any responses/ideas!

 

Definitely you should check with a different specialist if there are any options to repair this and get it straight. You said he shaved so I guess you are referring to bones? I know of a procedure of a local dentist that shave the teeth a little bit and measure instantly with a computer gadget to see how off your bite is and then he keeps taking measures until is perfectly aligned.

 

Hi Darwayne,

I believe you may have stumbled on this site by accident searching for answers to your TMJ issues. This is a "TMS" site, dealing with a myriad of chronic pain issues--which your TMJ may well be! If you do a "search" here you will find many threads dealing with dental issues.

It sounds like your dentist "shaved" a bit off your mouth guard, and not off your jaw. So the "damage" to your bite may not be permanent and could be cured rapidly by learning about the works about chronic pain developed by Dr. John Sarno, who this site is dedicated to. You may want to learn more about TMS as it could help you deal with and avoid many of life's pains in your future.

 

Fortunately, he didn't shave anything off my jaw . He constructed a mouth-guard that was meant to balance my bite and in turn, made it more unbalanced to the point that my teeth down line up straight. That is great news for me. I'll start searching for someone nearby that can help with balancing my jaw back to original. Thanks

 

Oops! Thank you for clarifying. I thought they were both similar jaw issues, my mistake. I'll read a bit on the forum, sounds interesting. I appreciate the kind words!