Any Ideas?

[yuttynutt]

So today I went to the doctor for what I thought was an ear infection, turns out it's not my ear at all, it's TMJ. She told me that I have either been grinding my teeth or over working my jaw or the ever familiar diagnosis among doctors "you are stressed out". So to my actual question, I love my tanks, but in my opinion this is where some of my issue is stemming from. I find sometimes that I have to forcefully suck the juice into the carto, I have tried punching larger holes but only to flood the carto. What is another option or is this just something I'm doing wrong. As always any help or ideas are greatly appreciated.

Yutty

 

[Unforeseen]

Moved from General E-Smoking Discussion to tanks

 

[redbucket]

I have TMJ. There are some causes known, but in general people just develop it without a known cause. See Wikipedia for more general info I guess. I've had dentists tell me it's because I sucked too hard on straws, because I ate too much candy, when I started getting older it was because I smoked or drank too much alcohol. My symptoms have been the same since I was a kid, it sometimes hurts. Especially when I chew a lot. I understand the scientific community's understanding of my issue to be "Dunno, seems like your jaw is all f//ked up or something." Surgery for TMJ is almost always disappointing for recipients, and very expensive. Best thing to do seems to deal with the symptom of pain. Oddly, for me, this means chewing a Flintstones children's vitamin. Whenever I have TMJ pain, I chew a Flintstones children's vitamin and it goes away. I originally started doing this because I read a TMJ forum post suggesting vitamin C applied directly to the gums/internal jaw area works for unexplained reasons. I didn't have any pure vitamin C around, so I just chewed an expired kid's vitamin i had in the medicine cabinet. Worked immediately, and continues to work, and so I don't know or care why but that's what I'll continue to do when I have TMJ pain.

 

[bnrkwest]

I also have TMJ, it was so bad years ago my jaws locked shut. My doctor who also had TMJ said it is more about how the jaw is formed and stress will lock up the mucles as well as inflammation will set in. He gave a simple exercise to do and it worked, I never had a problem again. He said to put a toothpick between the two front teeth and one in the two bottom teeth below. Everyday in front of a mirror, open and close your mouth and close, making sure the toothpicks line up perfectly with each other. This builds the muscles to keep your jaw in line to support the TMJ. It worked and I never had another problem.

The sucking on the tank carto maybe making your TMJ flare up, so doing this exercise will build up the proper muscles in your TMJ area. Good luck! bnrk

 

[redbucket]

I also have TMJ, it was so bad years ago my jaws locked shut. My doctor who also had TMJ said it is more about how the jaw is formed and stress will lock up the mucles as well as inflammation will set in. He gave a simple exercise to do and it worked, I never had a problem again. He said to put a toothpick between the two front teeth and one in the two bottom teeth below. Everyday in front of a mirror, open and close your mouth and close, making sure the toothpicks line up perfectly with each other. This builds the muscles to keep your jaw in line to support the TMJ. It worked and I never had another problem.

The sucking on the tank carto maybe making your TMJ flare up, so doing this exercise will build up the proper muscles in your TMJ area. Good luck! bnrk

I do actually also do a similar exercise, but with one toothpick in my upper teeth and trying to line it up with where my bottom two teeth meet. And only once after a "flare up" because after that I sort of lose focus I guess. I learned it from youtube, not a dentist. Honestly I only do it after "treating" with Flintstones children's vitamins, the day after usually, so I don't know if it does anything at all. I do know that when I've neglected my Flintstones and toothpickiness it has come back with a vengeance the next couple days. So I do those things and then it goes away. My dentists have always wanted to refer me to a surgeon, but once I started reading about people who have had the surgery.. oh my god, no one is had their pain go away. Why is this surgery still done?

 

[bnrkwest]

yep it does work My Doc said don't ever do the surgery because it does not work and will most likely make it worse. One problem is the scar tissue that forms, it does not do well in movement areas like the jaw. I avoid surgery unless absolutely necessary. bnrk