Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Who has tmj / jaw pain here?

I have tmj pain about 50% of the time.It is worse upon waking up.i find that a couple of cups of hot coffee plus eating and talking excercise the joint.also our natural cortizone builds as the morning goes on on and this is also beneficial to getting the joint limbered up and it usually is not a problem most of the time later in the day.sometimes it can keep being painful and as i take morphine ,time release, for my neck and back as well as all the other joints that hurt i usually don't have a problem by the time I retire which is somewhere in the early afternoon.
Kev

Hey!

I had a very hard time with tmj myself and could only open my jaw about two inches. I had the option of surgery which was not a guarentee to work for me but I saw a brilliant dentist who recognized the AS as being directly involved with the TMJ. For about a year I wore a customized contraption ( I don't really know how else to describe it!!) to reset my jaw. It took about a week to get over my really bad gag reflex ( I hear ya Kat! It was HORRIBLE!!) and it made eating a littel uncomfortable, but I can tell you I am completely pain free right now.

I went from blinding headaches,jaw aches and a locked jaw every morning to pain free. I tell my dentist all the time that he saved my life. I can't believe the difference now!!

But, to answer your first question, both my rheumy and my dentist always acknowledged the link between the AS and the TMJ

Good luck!

Ashley

Heck yes, I do! On the right side mostly. I went to the dentist the other day . . . and OWW! How are you supposed to ask for a break to close your mouth when they're IN your mouth? They're definitely not used to arthritis of the jaw. Next time, I'm telling them BEFORE they go in there . . .
Oh, and chewing gum can be unpleasant. And I still can't blow up a balloon, but that probably doesn't have anything to do with it.
And I have no idea how to fix it. Sorry.

Love, y'all!

-Bridget

Hi,

I am another member of the forum who has TMJ, or arthritis of the jaw. I had the dx for TMJ well before I got a dx for AS (long story). Anyway, my condition was dx'd by a maxilio-facial surgeon.
It is hard to tell whether it is related to the AS because of the extenuating circumstances of trauma that have substantially influenced the condition. I was hit in the mouth by a swing at the age of 4, and shortly afterwards was involved in a near fatal car accident. I suffered a cut just above my left eye, and I was concussed. I have no knowledge of whether or not I was thrown from the car. I had another smack to the face when I was about 11 years old. I had a cut to the same side of my head, just near the eye. Then at age 26 I was involved in another car accident and suffered whiplash.

The whiplash injury included stretched ligaments in my neck. In later years I have suffered from a variety of injury to my muscles and ligaments. I had severe head and neck pain. Over time I developed neuralgia and neuropathic pain. As Kat said, it feels like a toothache and other times it feels like the sinuses. My ears often join in the party.

The surgeon gave me a list of things to do in order to help reduce the inflammation. This morning I set off the pain when something hard touched my tooth on the left side of my face. I woke up with the pain and I have been in pain for most of the day. I think I will be back into a liquid and ice cream diet to control the pain.

Maggie

Yep. Right side. Arthritis of the jaw. Related to AS, according to my doctor.
Hurts like hell! Sometimes worse than others.
Just another one of those unexplained "presents" (not!) that we get with AS.

Hi Ladybuggie

Quote:

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i have a mouth guard that was made for me by a TMJ specialist last year. it helped me but i have had a hard time adapting to it. just me. i have asthma and bronchitis often so i wake up wheezing and the guard just freaks me out a bit...but thats me ..the big chicken bug.

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I also have a mouth guard, and I am having a hard time getting use to it. Finally my sleep apnea is controlled. I say that because I am starting to have dreams.

A couple weeks ago now, I had a weird dream, about my mouth guard. I was trying deparately to get it out. I kept pulling at it and it kept stretching. Darn thing was like a rubber band. It seemed to stretch for miles. Finally the darn thing gave.

I would not have remember this dream, if it hadn't been for the fact my mouth piece was sitting on my night stand beside my bed.

For many years I haven't dreamed because of uncontrolled sleep apnea. Now I have the weirdest dreams.

Take Care

Gerri

Hey Gerri, just on a side note re: apnea and dreams. When Brian first started with his apnea machine, he hadn't dreamed in years either. The sleep specialist told him that at first his dreams might be totally weird because he hadn't dreamed in so long that his brain had done the equivalent of saving them up. He had truly weird dreams at first, but that's calmed down now.

Ah the power of the brain.

Hugs,