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Nervous

G

geos

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 22, 2011
Messages
513
Location
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
I saw my dentist on Tuesday and from the symptoms I had described (mainly a sore lower jaw and me being more aware of my implant on the top jaw), I was told the pain I was having seemed to be from me clenching/grinding. I already have a night guard, so they looked at adjusting it. I was told that if I still feel bad in a few weeks, to go see the tmj specialist they referred me too. They only took an x-ray of my implant, did some palpating test of my jaw and tmj and looked around in my mouth with a mirror. Now since seeing the dentist on Tuesday, I also feel a dull ache in my lower right teeth, without being sure which tooth it is. I had seen my dentist 4 or 5 weeks ago for some pain while chewing on an apple piece and they had taken some x-rays in the back of the lower right area (the molars) and there was nothing. That pain as since stopped.

I'm wondering is this still related to my grinding and/or clenching? I feel like I might be overthinking this and making my stress worst. Maybe also the fact that we have the Easter long weekend doesn't help. I will go visits my parents, so I hope I can get my mind off all this. On the positive side, I noticed I have less issues while sleeping since going to the dentist on Tuesday.
 
Hi,

Good thing you don’t have difficuysleeping the night before. That’s certainly a sign of improvement.
With grinding/klenching it can get tricky to diagnose. I would suggest following your dentist’s diagnose (they did all the needed tests I think) and see how is it going on the next couple of days.
 
Thank you @Dr. Daniel, for some reason I keep questioning myself wondering if I gave all the proper information for them to give the proper diagnosis. I keep not feeling my 100% and I don’t know what to do. It could just be me stressing out too much, could be some general health issue or could be some dental issue.
 
Thank you @Dr. Daniel, for some reason I keep questioning myself wondering if I gave all the proper information for them to give the proper diagnosis. I keep not feeling my 100% and I don’t know what to do. It could just be me stressing out too much, could be some general health issue or could be some dental issue.
I think time is needed to clarify what it is. As long as it is not too painful and you can have a nice quality of life, no rush to draw conclusions.
 
I'm not a dentist but know that tmj can cause a huge range of 'weird' issues from which a lot may look like unrelated to teeth and it really is not rare for the people to doubt their sanity somewhere along the way. Grinding also usually gets worse in phases of stress so I could imagine that you worry a bit more now. If your dentist even took x-rays recently to see the back teeth and said everything is ok then that is a good news.

To your worry about giving them a proper information: Looking at x-rays makes it possible to see the form of the jaw joints and having a look at your muscles when you open and close as well as palpating shows whether there is any thing wrong such as any asymetry, limitation to opening or closing, any pain when there should be none etc. to see whether a tmj disorder is likely or not (not everyone who grinds has a tmj disorder and needs further therapy apart of a guard). There is no way how you could have done anything wrong by providing uncomplete information. If your pain doesn't subside, a tmj expert will be able to have a look more in detail and find out what exactly is going on and to describe which part of your joint or muscle etc. are affected and also tell you what will helps (such as a different, more specific guard, physiotherapy etc.).

As Dr.Daniel suggests, the best thing would be to try to stay distracted and enjoy Easter and see whether things got better and if not, see the specialist.

All the best wishes and keep us posted
 
Ah great, now my teeth feel more sensitive. I took water from the fridge, which felt ok this morning, and now this afternoon it feels sensitive. I also noticed I feel weird pressure when chewing on food that's a bit harder to chew on.
 
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