neck pain,jaw disconfort and pain, stress

[tebis]

Hello
I am new to this forum. I have been experiencing neck pain and jaw discomfort, almost like a numb sensation, kind of tender joints. my neck muscles are very tight and I feel like someone is pulling my head from the neck. The doctors including the ENT has mentioned maybe TMJ or inflammation. I initially went to the ent because I experienced Vertigo one night for about 20 minutes. I have not had it since the that one occasion. ENT initially said Labyrinths .While all of this has been happening I experienced very stressful situation including my dad having a Stroke so my stress levels raised high and my anxiety as well.

My right ear seems to be the one suffering the most...I get like reflective pain and almost like a small vibration. My jaw bones especially joints have are not in pain but kinda tender. I haven't played soccer in about 30 days because it feels kinda weird to run. My neck muscles and should muscles are incredible sore. I am doing Physical therapy and that has helped. Still have some bad days. I had headaches specially on the right hand side of my head and neck. I also experience sleep problems because I my neck would wake me up all the time. Also right between falling sleep i feel like I am moving a little bit. That freaks me out and I wake up. Doctor gave muscle relaxers and they have helped full nights of sleep.

I know my anxiety has been high because I of the headaches, I feel I have something more serious even though CT scan revealed nothing around my ear.

Has anyone experience something like that. How long before u recover fully?

Thanks so Much
Tebis

[Lemondrizzle]

Hi have stiff achy jaw along with other painful muscles. I believe the jaw thing you are experiencing is TMJ

[mourningdove]

I get the same thing.The head fuzziness and upper body pain. Stress is pretty insane in what it can do to your body. I carry my tension in my neck and shoulders and she said all the stress has slightly altered the alignment of my neck muscles. So now I might have to get physical therapy :/ but yes. I'm pretty sure what you're explaining is anxiety

[arislie]

thanks tour information guys

[MyNameIsTerry]

Don't worry about the sensation of movement when falling asleep. This can happen and is explained as Hypnogogia. Don't worry, it's perfectly natural and occurs in loads of people and whilst there is no connection to anxiety disorders, stress can make them occur more frequently.

So, if your doctors tell you a condition that doesn't include something like that movement sensation, hypnogogia is a possibility.

You can have all of this with just clenching/grinding without it being a TMJ. I had 6 months of bruxism. I was grinding my teeth in my sleep. I thought TMJ but I was due to see my dentist for a check up and he said it was just that the muscles of my jaw were enlarged due to grinding as he could see signs of it on my back teeth. I didn't grind but he asked if it was worse upon waking and it was so he told me I was grinding in my sleep.

He gave me an exercise to help with this (see below) and told me to eat soft foods for a while:

1. With mouth closed touch tongue to roof of mouth.
2. Open mouth wide.
3. Close mouth.
4. Repeat.

I did this before sleep and it did help. It helped in the day to. It just stretches the muscles out a bit. It took a while but it went and it saved me needing a nightguard.

Have you found you feel like you can't close your teeth together? And that you can't fully open your mouth because it feels like pressure pushing against you? I had that. Mine was mostly right sided pain and headaches. I could press on my teeth and have no pain so I knew it wasn't tooth ache.

Some people have ear problems with this and even neck ache.

Here is another thread that might also be worth a look. It contains a mostly complete online copy of a book that talks about referred pain and using trigger point massage. The navigation can jump around a bit in the book so sometimes you have to scroll page by page or it seems to skip over things. It's easy to learn and requires barely any equipment (tennis ball, wall) in the case of some of them whereas most is just your hands.

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=169782

It's worth getting a proper diagnosis from your doctor though to be sure.