TMJ Ear pain?

[ElleNicole]

Anyone else suffer from TMJ and have outer ear pain and forehead pain? But only on one side?

[MyNameIsTerry]

I haven't had TMJ but I had 6 months of Bruxism when I started a med. My dentist said it wasn't TMJ and was night grinding. I came up with TMJ from reading on this forum before I joined and he told me that it's often not TMJ anyway and simple clenching/grinding accounts for it.

I had pain up the right hand side mostly. I know others on here who have talked about their TMJ issues who have had one sided pain with it.

It was pain in the jaw, up the side of the face and around the temple area. Some ear pain but not much. Plenty of headaches too. The thing is, if you touch your fingers to your temples and then clench your jaw you will feel the band of muscle around the temples contract too. This is why you get headaches with it. We had an advert for a headaches pain killer over here a couple of years back with a demonstration showing the muscles that contract together and the ones around the temple moved with the cheek.

I also had problems closing my teeth together and opening my jaw wide. It was like something was stopping it. My dentist had a feel of my jaw muscles and said they were enlarged.

There are things you can do for this though. I can post the exercise my dentist gave me and I have a link to a trigger point therapy book that covers these issues. Let me know if you want them posting.