Seeking advice for TMJ disorder treatments

I chewed through so many night guards!  Then stopped using them and started going regularly to community acupuncture (sliding scale, inexpensive, look up what's near you), and some excellent chiropractic care at Balance Point Chiropractic on Shattuck: balancepointchiropractic.com. If you're like me you might also need some posture improvement, through pilates or yoga or Alexander Technique.  With all that, I'm so much better now.  I don't clench or grind at all anymore and wouldn't go back to night guards.

What solved my TMJ problem was a May Mandibular Pivot Appliance.It was a hard splint on the lower teeth that had two raised spots on it.I also later had a crozat appliance which expanded my jaw a little.The dentist that treated me,Dr. Stephen Broderson,retired.Another dentist that worked in his office may also treat TMJ or know who else uses these methods.I would contact Dr. Seymour Kurtz on Gilman in Berkeley and ask him.I had treatment with another dentist before I went to Dr. Broderson and the treatments did not help.I had a bad case and have been fine after the treatment which was many years ago.

I have suffered from the same terrible TMJ pain since the birth of my second child. Sometimes the clenching was so bad that one entire side of my face would get swollen. While it hasn't gone away entirely I have been able to manage it by taking a magnesium suppliment and using magnesium oil at night. 

Good luck! 

Sam

 I have suffered from tmj pain for 45 years.  I do use a night guard, and have received botox shots from Kaiser head and neck , in the jaw, with great results. I had about 4 injections   appointments over the space of a year.The muscle tension that I had carried around in my jaw disappeared and I haven't had any injections for 3 years.

Chiropractic solved my TMJ problem. My TMJ symptoms had been getting increasingly worse in my 30s when my general practitioner physician referred me to a TMJ specialist at a famous medical center in Boston where I was living at the time.  Before I made an appointment with a TMJ specialist physician, however, I was in a minor car accident and decided I wanted to see a chiropractor that my optometrist had recommended to me.  I didn't even tell the chiropractor that I had TMJ issues because we were focused on potential whiplash.  After only the first session, I went home and noticed my jaw problem was GONE, which I certainly had not expected.  No night guards, no more teeth grinding, and my mouth opened smoothly without grinding or catching. [I needed some more adjustments but just one made my jaw problems go away!]. My chiropractor told me that my neck misalignment (which was causing the TMJ issues) might have been a result of orthodontic work done in the 1970s (back when the style was to yank kids' necks around with pliers on the wires on our teeth), which finally started bothering me in my 30s. Now every few years if I catch myself grinding my teeth at night or find biting down on a sandwich a little painful, I just go to the chiropractor and an adjustment solves the problem. I don't know if it would be this simple for everyone, but it was for me. My chiropractor in the Bay Area is Dr Maya Bose in Corte Madera. She is more than worth the relatively short drive from Oakland/Berkeley and much cheaper and faster than flying to Boston, which I used to do after trying 3 chiropractors in Berkeley whose treatments didn't work for me and before she moved to the Bay Area from Boston.