Sleep Apnea and TMJ

Hello,

New user here, nice to meet you all!

My question: has anyone experienced TMJ disorder to the point that it wouldn’t go away until they cured/treated their sleep apnea?

I have had TMD along with its harshest symptoms (tinnitus, constant vertigo, jaw pain) for almost a year and have tried multiple TMJ treatments. Although some helped it never really went away.

Recently my dentist said I might have sleep apnea and indeed I tested positive. I am anxiously awaiting for my machine which I will be wearing in conjunction with my orthotic (basically a fancy splint which sits on the lower jaw at night and in the day).

I am optimistic because I myself have noticed that I currently wake up with only my back molars touching (clenching) as if to allow maximum air breathing at night. When I tried the cpap machine I woke up without any tmj symptoms and I didn’t even have a great night of sleep.

I look forward to hearing your opinions. Thanks!

You "tested positive" for sleep apnea? What kind of test? Never heard of sleep apnea treatment curing TMJ. Most of your post doesn't make sense.

Welcome, odisseo! Your post made me curious, and I see online that there is indeed an association between TMJ and sleep apnea:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3706181/

These researchers were not able to conclude one way or another whether there is a causal relationship, but the strong association is suggestive.

Your own experience is important! Waking up after CPAP use with no TMJ symptoms sounds very promising.

Do you know what kind of machine you'll be getting? If it's a regular auto-adjusting PAP machine, a lot of people here would recommend the ResMed Airsense 10 Autoset. You might check with the provider to see whether you can put in a request for that.

Once you get your machine, we'd be happy to help you with making the treatment work as well as possible for you, so do keep us posted, staying in this thread so everyone can see the background you've provided.

odisseo wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:18 pm

Hello,

New user here, nice to meet you all!

My question: has anyone experienced TMJ disorder to the point that it wouldn’t go away until they cured/treated their sleep apnea?

I have had TMD along with its harshest symptoms (tinnitus, constant vertigo, jaw pain) for almost a year and have tried multiple TMJ treatments. Although some helped it never really went away.

Recently my dentist said I might have sleep apnea and indeed I tested positive. I am anxiously awaiting for my machine which I will be wearing in conjunction with my orthotic (basically a fancy splint which sits on the lower jaw at night and in the day).

I am optimistic because I myself have noticed that I currently wake up with only my back molars touching (clenching) as if to allow maximum air breathing at night. When I tried the cpap machine I woke up without any tmj symptoms and I didn’t even have a great night of sleep.

I look forward to hearing your opinions. Thanks!

I went to my dentist about severe TMJ, she was the one who said I should take a sleep study. My lower jaw is small and my upper has an overbite and her impression was that my TMJ/clenching was the result of my mouth unconsciously trying to push my tongue forward because it was blocking my airway. I'd been wearing a lower night-guard for TMJ for two years, and once I stopped wearing it, my pain level decreased because the lower guard was also decreasing the room for my tongue which was causing clenching. .

My Sleep Doc said my TMJ should continue to decrease as I adapt to Cpap because it will open my airway. I've been struggling adapting to the machine for a month so I don't know. I have major issues with a full face mask because of pressure on my teeth and jaw, but I mouth breathe and anytime I try the nasal mask with a chinstrap, my mouth still opens. I posted seeking suggestions about masks and nasal congestion, but thus far, no one has any advice.

There is def a correlation between TMJ and apena, I read several articles about it when I first started this journey back in October. I hope your TMJ continues to improve with cpap.

This is the same person under 2 different names!! Look at Kristen's first post.

LSAT wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 27, 2021 2:02 pm

This is the same person under 2 different names!! Look at Kristen's first post.

No. I made my first post about nasal congestion and mask issues yesterday. I saw this person's post about TMJ and thought I'd b helpful and try to contribute to the community that I just joined. Still hoping someone can help me about sinus congestion in my post.

Maybe your humidity is higher than necessary - experiment with it when weather changes.

Hmmm. The OP stated they were waiting for their machine, yet said they used the CPAP machine for one night and TMJ symptoms were gone completely.

I’m not sure that one night of CPAP can cure TMJ. I’ve had TMJ for years and it’s pretty painful. When TMJ first started it was intermittent, but then became more steady until I had symptoms daily. My dentist did tell me that I might have sleep apnea which might have caused/worsened the TMJ. He said that the body will attempt to maintain an airway during sleep causing a clenching of the jaw or cause your jaw to hang open. That constant clenching or jaw hanging open can inflame the jaw tendons (not sure if they are tendons lol) leading to TMJ pain.

Anyway dentist was correct, I had sleep apnea and have been using CPAP for almost 3 months. I did not see any immediate improvement in the TMJ when I started CPAP therapy. However, over the past few weeks my TMJ has been slowly improving which has made me hopeful that perhaps the sleep apnea and TMJ are connected, at least for me. I am, as they say, cautiously optimistic lol.

Miss Emerita wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:00 am

Welcome, odisseo! Your post made me curious, and I see online that there is indeed an association between TMJ and sleep apnea:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3706181/

These researchers were not able to conclude one way or another whether there is a causal relationship, but the strong association is suggestive.

Your own experience is important! Waking up after CPAP use with no TMJ symptoms sounds very promising.

Do you know what kind of machine you'll be getting? If it's a regular auto-adjusting PAP machine, a lot of people here would recommend the ResMed Airsense 10 Autoset. You might check with the provider to see whether you can put in a request for that.

Once you get your machine, we'd be happy to help you with making the treatment work as well as possible for you, so do keep us posted, staying in this thread so everyone can see the background you've provided.

Hi Oscar,

Thank you for your message. That’s exactly the machine they are giving me! Fingers crossed. Thank you very much for your offer though.

Kristen999 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 27, 2021 12:30 pm

odisseo wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:18 pm

Hello,

New user here, nice to meet you all!

My question: has anyone experienced TMJ disorder to the point that it wouldn’t go away until they cured/treated their sleep apnea?

I have had TMD along with its harshest symptoms (tinnitus, constant vertigo, jaw pain) for almost a year and have tried multiple TMJ treatments. Although some helped it never really went away.

Recently my dentist said I might have sleep apnea and indeed I tested positive. I am anxiously awaiting for my machine which I will be wearing in conjunction with my orthotic (basically a fancy splint which sits on the lower jaw at night and in the day).

I am optimistic because I myself have noticed that I currently wake up with only my back molars touching (clenching) as if to allow maximum air breathing at night. When I tried the cpap machine I woke up without any tmj symptoms and I didn’t even have a great night of sleep.

I look forward to hearing your opinions. Thanks!

I went to my dentist about severe TMJ, she was the one who said I should take a sleep study. My lower jaw is small and my upper has an overbite and her impression was that my TMJ/clenching was the result of my mouth unconsciously trying to push my tongue forward because it was blocking my airway. I'd been wearing a lower night-guard for TMJ for two years, and once I stopped wearing it, my pain level decreased because the lower guard was also decreasing the room for my tongue which was causing clenching. .

My Sleep Doc said my TMJ should continue to decrease as I adapt to Cpap because it will open my airway. I've been struggling adapting to the machine for a month so I don't know. I have major issues with a full face mask because of pressure on my teeth and jaw, but I mouth breathe and anytime I try the nasal mask with a chinstrap, my mouth still opens. I posted seeking suggestions about masks and nasal congestion, but thus far, no one has any advice.

There is def a correlation between TMJ and apena, I read several articles about it when I first started this journey back in October. I hope your TMJ continues to improve with cpap.

Interesting, that’s very similar to what happened to me. My neuromuscular dentist gave me an orthotic which I’ve worn for five months and although I like the support it does constrain my tongue I think, in the back especially.

I myself have an overbite with a small jaw and a relatively large tongue. In fact I had a tongue tie until the same dentist gave me a frenectomy in November.

Something that might help you is to look into nose breathing. I just had a septoplasty to allow nose breathing and I think that has helped to some extent at least.

The same dentist suggested I may have sleep apnea and that it essentially causes my jaw to move and clench a lot at night as it tries to open the airway. I myself notice that in top of giving my tongue less room, the orthotic almost aggravates my TMJ because it gives my jaw a pedestal to rest my back molars on rather than distributing the pressure all around. In other words, I think I am subconsciously placing my back molars on it and opening the rest of the mouth when I have my sleep apnea episodes, worsening the pressure that goes right below the ears.

So I I got tested with a sleep study in a special facility and they told me I have 28 episodes per hour. When I woke up I also noticed significantly less pressure in the TMJ and had no vertigo symptoms. I am now eagerly waiting for my ENT to clear me for cpap therapy as she said I should wait to let my nose repair in full after the surgery.

Going in for a check up tomorrow, it will be almost theee weeks after my septoplasty so hopefully I can starT using it soon.

Movieman wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 27, 2021 7:10 pm

Hmmm. The OP stated they were waiting for their machine, yet said they used the CPAP machine for one night and TMJ symptoms were gone completely.

I’m not sure that one night of CPAP can cure TMJ. I’ve had TMJ for years and it’s pretty painful. When TMJ first started it was intermittent, but then became more steady until I had symptoms daily. My dentist did tell me that I might have sleep apnea which might have caused/worsened the TMJ. He said that the body will attempt to maintain an airway during sleep causing a clenching of the jaw or cause your jaw to hang open. That constant clenching or jaw hanging open can inflame the jaw tendons (not sure if they are tendons lol) leading to TMJ pain.

Anyway dentist was correct, I had sleep apnea and have been using CPAP for almost 3 months. I did not see any immediate improvement in the TMJ when I started CPAP therapy. However, over the past few weeks my TMJ has been slowly improving which has made me hopeful that perhaps the sleep apnea and TMJ are connected, at least for me. I am, as they say, cautiously optimistic lol.

Yeah I should have soscified that I didn’t Mohave all tmj symptoms completely gone away. But my vertigo was and I’ll take that any day !

Glad to hear you’re getting an excellent machine. I imagine your one experience with CPAP so far was in your sleep study. Sometimes the study is split between a diagnostic interval and a titration interval.

Oh ok Odisseo. Glad your vertigo went away.

Miss Emerita wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:53 pm

Glad to hear you’re getting an excellent machine. I imagine your one experience with CPAP so far was in your sleep study. Sometimes the study is split between a diagnostic interval and a titration interval.

Yep exactly, I did two sleep studies without a cpap and one with it. It was weird at first but then I never wanted to remove the mask