I'm hoping its good news !
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Sorry everyone for the unintentional cliffhanger T_T I had brain fog and an increase in my pain which made me have a breakdown! So this isn't really good news, but it's not bad either (i think.) From the beginning my PT was very upfront about how he does not treat TMD, nor is he qualified to treat it.....because they don't learn about it in PT school.
Well, technically they do. For a day they practiced sticking their fingers in people's mouth (orofacial massage), and that is the extent of what PTs learn about TMD. I actually learned how to do this before he told me, but it doesn't really work for me so i stopped trying lol He told me about ablasions, where they zap your nerves to make the stop hurting (so medieval)
He told me about other patients whom had TMD, where one guy felt like his face was being ripped off (that is sadly very relatable...) The other thing is that my PT has TMD too and he's had it for years. However, we experience it differently. He said he clenches his teeth and his discs click more when he clenches. He tried using mouthgaurds but didn't like them because it made it hard for him to sleep.
So he doesn't use mouthguards at all. He didn't elaborate whether he has pain like i'm in, he's actually unsure if i have TMD. I do think he has tinnitus (because when i told him my my tinnitus gets louder when i swallow he tried to swallow himself and see if it increased for him, he did not say whether it did) We asked him if he knows anyone (tmj specialists) and he doesn't.
He told us to find out through our insurance and then jokingly tell him because he needs one LOL (I cried so much today i'm out of tears rn) I told him about the TMD book i was reading, and the PT who wrote it, he seemed interested in it. Maybe he will give it a read himself. It talks about how the whole body affects the jaw, and that seemed new to him
So when he told me IN THE FIRST SESSION that there aren't enough tmj docs and there needs to be more of them, that was straight up brutal honesty from experience.
i still can't help but think he went into this with at least a little bit of bias? Because he kept telling me my facial pain is a serparate issue. It believe it is all one issue, given the timeline of events. I had brief clicking in my left tmj when i chewed in june then once it stopped my bite shifted and it became difficult to open my mouth. My cheek and jaw muscles hurt daily, spasming and tightening.
I get referred pain into my teeth, the back molars. As well as my ears, eustachian tubes, and down my throat. I am not well. I am in so much pain. And when he said all of that, it didn't suprise me, but it was also crushing at the same time.
There is a tactile component to my tinnitus. When my facial muscles are very tense, i can scratch the right side of my face, near my ear along the masseter muscle, and it WILL increase my T. It's like playing a musical instrument.
Good news, my ears are popping less to sound. They still pop, but kitchen utensils clacking on plates are no longer a problem (mostly) The exercises in PT are still exercises that poeple with TMD do to help with their pain. Like the rows. So maybe it is helping anyway. I really just want the parts in my head to stop hurting. A day without pain, god please grant my wish.
And even though he's not qualified, as he says, to treat TMD, he still does try to help. Not like the other doctors who shrug their shoulders and run out of the room just to do the same with the next patient in their jam packed scheduales. There have been people who said that strenghtening their core and back helped heal their TMD.