The Vicious Cycle of TMJ

Are you familiar with what TMJ is?

It's a fun little thing, that basically means your jaw hates you. If you want to see some more "legit" information on it, I suggest Wikipedia. But, really, to sum up, it does indeed mean that your jaw hates you.

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Mine hates me because I grind my teeth when I sleep. No matter what. For the longest time, it wasn't an issue (except for anyone else in the room, who had to listen to the allegedly horrendous sound it makes).
Then, it got worse.
With stress.
And it has molded and shape-shifted into something much worse.

When in high stress situations that lasted longer than a day or two, my mouth decided to turn into a horrible mess.
It started with tooth pain...which was manageable for a while (other than leading to other issues - thanks, ibuprofen!).
Then it led to jaw pain. That went up the whole side of my face. It would be just pain and dull and achy, but quite horrible, and led to many tears. For days at a time. At one point I resorted to using Icy-Hot on my face to get through the day. Not something I recommend (no, I didn't have any skin reactions to it, but you smell all menthol-y all day, which is not pleasant).

Now, I'm much less stressed, and for the longest time had been free of the nonsense.
The past few weeks I have been dealing with all of this again, though, and it's getting quite frustrating.

I grind my teeth when I sleep, and that puts a ton of pressure on my jaw (I would look up the actual number of pounds it is, but it's depressing, so let's not do that). And when I'm stressed, it just goes up. I wear a mouth guard (these actually), but that only helps to not destroy my teeth any more. Yes, the rubbery-ness soaks up some of the pressure, but not nearly enough - I would show you what these things end up looking like after just one night, but it's kind of gross, so just imagine teeth marks on the clear rubber.

My jaw seems to know when it's bed time, as it will start to ache. Right up near my ear, too, so it almost feels like a dull ear infection. So, I get in bed with a hot pack, mouth guard in, and plaster the hot pack all over the side of my face, trying to get the hottest spot on my upper jaw, near my ear.
This lets me fall asleep, at least.

But multiple times, I have woken up in the middle of the night in pain. Most of the time I wake up in the morning in pain. Some days have had tears. Some days have had naps, because all I can manage to do is lay down and try to relax.

It's a vicious cycle at this point.
Because I'm stressed about my teeth and my jaw and how ridiculous it has gotten. Which, is a stress that lasts for more than a day or two, so it's leading me to having more jaw problems...

I can't wear headphones or earbuds for more than an hour or so, before my ear-area starts to hurt. I had a stressful moment coming home from grocery shopping (parking problems, amirite?), my blood pressure went up, and my jaw started to hurt. It can be the middle of the afternoon, and nothing seems to be going on, and my jaw starts to hurt.

I'm at a loss of what to do. I've read horror stories online (as one does) about people going to a million different doctors and dentists and things, trying to get some sort of relief. People who have had surgeries to get help, only to have no relief (and those surgeries cannot be undone).

I plan on starting down the path of seeing a doctor for it, but I am not sure where to start, other than to try and have as much patience as possible. Maybe if I am patient, it won't stress me out too much, which will mean it won't make my problems even worse. Wouldn't that be nice.

~Havok

P.S. This is not to get sympathy. It simply goes along with my subject matter (hence the name Anxiously being Havok). Anxiety and stress can lead to many different ailments, none of which are fun - and most of which are not physically apparent to anyone else. The tagline here is "trying to be less Anxious and more Havok", and that's what this post is about - needing to do something that can get a motion forward. Thank you for your understanding.