Not sure TMJ is actually mindbody, anyone can help?

[Ellen]

I was just wondering - if/when you've had any relapses, what TMS work is your 'go to' thing (or things) that you do to get over those blips? (As I'm thinking that might indicate what the main/important strategies were that got you better.)

Another mystery to me regarding how the TMS brain works is why for some of us (e.g. me!) we experience a lot of profound improvement doing 'the work', yet not full recovery. (It's like my brain no longer sets off symptoms at the volume of a fog horn, but has instead settled on ringing some hand bells.)

At this point in my relationship to TMS, if I am having a relapse it usually only takes my realization and acceptance that whatever symptoms I'm experiencing are in fact TMS. Then the symptoms start to subside over the course of a day or two. But coming to that realization can take me a while at times. It's hard for me to believe that after all this time, I can still fall prey to TMS, but I definitely can. Shining the light of awareness on it is what ultimately leads to recovery now.

During my first recovery journey, I got stuck at 80-90% recovery for quite a while. I had had fibromyalgia for 20 years, and what I noticed is that I had developed the habit of tensing all my muscles. Doing the work, I started to become conscious of it little by little, and then could actually think about relaxing my muscles. I think this could be described as the process of developing new neural pathways in the brain, and it may just take a while for this to happen fully. That is my best guess at what is going on.

 

[BloodMoon]

During my first recovery journey, I got stuck at 80-90% recovery for quite a while. I had had fibromyalgia for 20 years, and what I noticed is that I had developed the habit of tensing all my muscles. Doing the work, I started to become conscious of it little by little, and then could actually think about relaxing my muscles. I think this could be described as the process of developing new neural pathways in the brain, and it may just take a while for this to happen fully. That is my best guess at what is going on.

That equates with me because my main issue is fibromyalgia, which I was also diagnosed with over 20 years ago. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

 

[Leon Schulze]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been dealing with tight jaw muscles for at least 10 years, also sensitive and painful teeth, crackling sound when I swallow, headaches and face pain,.. I saw an orthodontist and he told me I probably need a surgery to expand my palate in order to correct my crossbite so that my teeth align well. However my psychiatrist told me it’s all stress related, and my other dentist tells me its not structural but rather clenching/grinding related.
This left me very confused because I really don’t know whether my symptoms are structural or purely TMS.

If anyone has had a similar experience and could give me his opinion it would be super nice. Or direct me to something helpful.

To give a little more context, I’m a 27 years old male and I’ve been dealing with a host of mindbody symptoms pretty much my whole life. Stress, anxiety, high blood pressure, intrusive thoughts, tmj, breathing issues, GI symptoms and all that fun stuff..
Until 4 years ago a time when I was under much pressure at university and work, my nervous system broke down and I was completely debilitated with severe symptoms (depersonnalization, chronic fatigue, chronic migraines, couldnt think, couldnt walk, couldnt do anything pretty much). The situation improved somewhat but I still have these tmj symptoms and depersonalization, anxiety.

Many thanks to everyone and have a nice day.

I think it is just an normal abnormality. So may people have misligned jaws, croocket teeth, small pallett etc. and have no pain what so ever. And on the other hand there are people with the perfwct teeth, jaws and bites and have extreme pain.

 

[Barkis]

TMJ can 100 percent be TMS.
I know because I had it and had dental procedures were performed that never resolved it. I also had numerous consultations with a range of consultant level practitioners and was essentially sent on my way with a diagnosis of idiopathic toothache.

Mine resolved when I somehow convinced myself it was TMS.
Unfortunately, it's now elsewhere: arms/hands -- stomach and back.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Unfortunately, it's now elsewhere: arms/hands -- stomach and back.

Sounds like you had success just with TMS knowledge, which works great - for a while! Our brains find ways to sabotage this because they are wired for negativity and for keeping you on the edge and fearful, as a matter of primitive survival.

So your TMS brain mechanism has upped the ante, which means you need to up the ante.

If you didn't previously do the work, which means doing one of our free programs, now's the time to make that commitment.

The two programs are the Structured Educational Program which is on the main TMSwiki.org or Alan Gordon's Pain Recovery Program which is on this forum (a link to that is at the top of the main wiki).

For people who want to avoid the vulnerability of emotional work, there's also Alan's brand new Pain Reprocessing Therapy which has its own wiki and discussion forum, and that link is also found next to his other one on our main wiki.

However I personally believe that experiencing vulnerability and doing the emotional work leads to a better experience of recovery that is easier to employ in the future when the TMS brain mechanism invariably creates setbacks.

Spoiler alert: expressive writing (with many different variations and methods) and insight into what is really bothering you is the key to lifelong control over TMS.

Feel free to peruse the list of resources I've collected after my profile story.