Yesterday, I finally saw a doctor for an issue I've been having for probably ten years but never quite identified (or at least I never associated all the symptoms to it).
The main issue is headaches almost every day that make it hard to concentrate on or read anything, even things I enjoy like video games or hobbies I like learning about. The only thing that makes it feel better is sleeping; although, eating is a good distraction. When this first started happening, I thought they were just hunger headaches, so I ate often and became fat (from which I have recovered. It was also in combination with other injuries that limited activity). More recently, I associated these headaches with high blood pressure or caffeine withdrawal because I saw some improvement when these were under control.
I've also, on rare occasion, experienced intense, incapacitating pain in my TMJ (jaw joint) when biting into food. Refraining from chewing gum and also from biting my cheeks (nervous habit) helped reduce that. My TMJ also pops audibly sometimes when moving my jaw in certain positions.
There are other things that may or may not be related, such as neck stiffness and ear pain.
Lately, once I started paying closer attention, I've noticed that I have a lot of tension in my face and jaw muscles and have to deliberately focus on relaxing them, which has helped somewhat.
Anyway, in my appointment, imaging and visual inspection showed that I have bone spurs on my jaw and buccal exostosis (which I had noticed a few years ago but never knew the reason for), both of which are supposedly indications of chronic jaw clenching and/or grinding. Apparently, I also have inflammation in my nasal cavity and slightly deviated septum, which may contribute to weird jaw positions during sleep to accommodate mouth breathing (although sleeping helps symptoms, so this may just be an incidental finding).
I now have an oral appliance that cost $1175; even though, it's just a plastic mold of my teeth that changes my bite alignment a little bit. If that doesn't work, there's an additional appliance that can be added (for extra money of course). For severe cases, botox injections can be used to relax the muscles.
I'm not really sure what the point of this post is, but I'm happy to be trying something to fix this.
