Why Physical Therapy?

I've had a lot of people ask me about physical therapy. Why do you go there? What do they do? I know sometimes it's hard to understand that something like teeth alignment can cause severe issues throughout your whole body. It's important to understand anatomy and physiology. However, to simply explain, if you have a skeletal imbalance in addition to trauma ( teeth grinding) after a period of time your muscles fatigue and your body begins to accommodate. My body is off balance and that leads to a lot of other issues. My doctor has informed me that I have some vascular problems due to the inflammation in my neck and upper back. So, with this I get really dizzy. I am now now allowed to perform any heavy duty sports, running, or repetitive activities.  This condition has severely compromised my day-to-day life.  I have many limitations on things I can do. For example, I can't carry heavy bags or backpacks (anything that puts my body off balance), I can't go running ( the one thing I fell in love with), I can't lift heavy weights or use heavy gym equipment, absolutely no contact sports, and so on. I have a pretty terrible ROM (range of motion) with my neck.  It's also pretty terrible that I'm in my early 30's and can't walk more than 5 miles in a day or I feel extremely dizzy or severe neck pain. Sometimes, it's hard for me to even be comfortable siting down.  An easy way to think about this is to imagine that your own head weighs double and that you have to constantly support the extra weight. Due to this, I have a lot of headaches (tension/migraine), nerve problems, and jaw pain. Although, medically this isn't considered a chronic illness, I believe it ranks very close to this. The pain I deal with is not excruciating but, annoying and limiting in my normal daily life. Although, the doctor did explain that this is a chronic inflammatory situation. Not only does this cause physical pain and suffering, also emotional pain. It can be very depressing to have such physical limitations at an early age. I know mostly all of this is reversible, and i've been promised a basic "clean slate" after surgery and PT. It's still hard imaging going back to normal day to day life. However, I am optimistic.

How To Cope With The Pain: 

To help with physical discomfort  I do the following: attend physical therapy weekly, avoid heavy physical activity, attempt to remain on a soft food diet, pay attention to my posture, purchased a special temper cervical support pillow, self massage,  home PT exercises, wear a soft cervical collar,  hot and cold compresses, pain killers (minimally). *If you're reading this and have additional suggestions please feel free to comment in the section below**


My physical therapist has specialized in TMJD. She usually concentrates on helping to strengthen my muscles and ROM. She helps release muscle tension and provides me with exercises and advice to help deal with the pain until I have have surgery. It's quite strange to have another person massaging in inside of your mouth. It's actually very helpful though. She has offered acupuncture to many on various occasions. I have a deep hatred of needles, so at this point I haven't agreed to anything. I will continue to see her after my surgery and fingers crossed my situation will improve dramatically.

My PT tried Kinesiology with me! I highly recommend it! 

Image borrowed from (http://www.necksolutions.com/tmj-pain.html)

The best purchase I have made has been the temper cervical support pillow. It has taken some time to adjust (few weeks) but, I am actually sleeping a lot better than before. Bruxism can also be considered a parasomnia. A parasomnia is generally abnormal movements, perceptions or behaviors that occur between sleep stages. Basically, I never get into REM sleep.

I chose the Millenium model.

Bruxism interrupts my normal sleep patterns and I wake up feeling like I never slept most mornings. At one point I was abruptly woken up with flashing lights in my eyes or strange shoulder movement.  My doctor said it was due to my neck and upper back muscles being constantly flexed through the night. I usually wake up between 4-6 times per night. Sometimes from just being a light sleeper and others from the sound of grinding my teeth (or the movement).  Fortunately, this is improving with the use of my support pillow.  If anyone else experiences these problems I highly recommend getting a support pillow.

There is so little research done about TMJD and other Orofacial pain syndromes that it is difficult to even get doctors on board with the diagnosis. Sometimes  patient needs to be seen by specialized dentist, maxillofacial surgeons, and even neurologist. A diagnosis can be very complicated because so many different parts of the body are involved and grave medical misunderstandings.

In my free time, I spend a lot of time researching these conditions. I hope I can reach others with the same issues and help spread awareness. This is one of those times where you really don't know what others are going through. Just because someone doesn't look sick, doesn't mean they aren't dealing with all sorts of ailments.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story!