Hello, everyone. Several friends who have TMD have recently asked me how I've been successfully solving my terrible TMJ problem -- not 100 percent,but at least 90 percent solved. Also, my number one resolution for the new year is to give back more, and I've been thinking about starting a thread on this topic for while now. I hope it is helpful to at least someone out there.

Anyway, here's my situation: For the past 15 years or so, I've been grinding my teeth every night, and now most of the facets are ground down. And I had really loud clicking in my jaws, and sore jaw muscles in the morning. Then I started trying the best suggestions that I could find in dozens of books, Internet postings, and also trying just about every product available. I even went to a fancy TMJ specialist, and spent almost $4000 for a year and a half of splint therapy, which just made me worse (and a lot poorer...).

Some things worked really well, some were useless, and some seem to last a little while, and then fade out. During the past six months or so, I've been following a treatment plan that I think combines the best of everything that I've learned, and I feel like I'm on the right path, with a lot less pain and clicking than years ago. Here's what I've been doing, and I hope it works for the rest of you:

1) I did everything I could to reduce the stress in my life. I used to work super long hours at an unappreciative company, and now I work from home. I make less than before, but it's worth it. I've also weeded out the "toxic people" in my life, and then made a big difference, especially for just one individual.
2) I exercise every single day, and do a full stretching routine. Even when I don't feel like exercising, I force myself to do it anyway, and I'm glad I did, by the time I'm finished.
3) To try to stop the grinding at night, I tried a bunch of regular splints, but all I did was grind the splints. Then I tried a product called Grind-alert (or something like that), but it wasn't any good because it kept slipping off my forehead. I'm now using something called an Oralsensor, which attaches to my ear (instead of wrapping around the forehead), and it works a lot better. I've only had a couple mornings where I wake up and find that the device has fallen off, but I plan on keeping trying it. It costs about $200, so unless you're grinding at night, don't bother.
4) I don't eat hard candy or peanut butter anymore, and I soak all nuts and seeds before eating them. Do it in your fridge, else some seeds can go weird or start sprouting -- sunflower seeds especially. Of course, some people may want to try sprouting. In that case I recommend alfalfa or black beans.
5) I do everything I can now to have a more positive attitude about life. Spending more time with family and friends, seems to help. But the biggest thing of all is not taking the good things in life for granted, and being grateful for what I have. I'm not sure how much this is help the TMJ, but it sure makes a difference during the day, when I used to be miserable.

That's the gist of it. There are some other things I've tried, such as massage and acupuncture, but those didn't help much, and the cost really added up.


If anyone out there tries this program for at least a few months, please post your results here -- positive or negative -- so we can all learn and perhaps refine this into something that will work for a lot of people. I used to think that a doctor or dentist would be able to give me a quick fix, but I've learned that it's more a long-term management problem, not something that can be fixed overnight.

Anyway, best of luck everyone, and happy holidays!

-Nancy