I have a lot of troubles with my eyes and this is almost worse than the pain in my jaw. My eye muscles seem to have seized up and there is such bad pulling behind/inside my eye and in my sinus area whenever I blink or move my eye. It's all day and it effects my vision i.E. Blurry, splotchy, very sensitive to light, my eyes seem to have dried up. I get nauseated from the pulling and tension in my eyes, is this similar to what you have? What course of action are you taking for your myofascial pain dysfunction? I am trying ot find a dentist who will take my problems seriously. The night guard I wear is useless and I think only makes the problem worse. I tried chiropractics and it actually made my jaw a whole lot worse and exasburated the eye strain.

Hello, I feel so bad for you- this sounds like a duplicate of what I had! The person that diagnosed my myofascial pain was an oral surgeon. My dentist saw that I was a bruxer (teeth grinding) so he made me a soft lower splint and it made things 10x worse! The only thing that has helped me was throw away the splint, 2 weeks on prednisone, strong anti-inflammatories for another 2 weeks and a glorious neuromuscular massage. My eyes lteraally felt like they were being pushed out of my sockets! I also had cracking and popping in my sinuses, eyes, ears and muscles. The thing that helped me the most of anything was a prescription for flexeril (muscle relaxer) and the massage. My eyes immeditely felt better and things improved from there. I would suggest starting some stretching of your neck muscles afetr applying heat form a heating pad or in the shower, and check for hard, sore knots (trigger points) these are what is referring pain to your sinuses and eyes. Right at the base of your skull are muscles connected to your sinuses and massaging those should help. Right now I have minimal eye pain, no more dryness and am considering wearing my contacts again after 3 months w/out them! I thought for sure I was going blind! My eye doc looked at them twice before I had a diagnosis and nothing was wrong with my eyes, so don't worry, this is normal w/ severe mysifascial pain and jaw problems. Actually my jaw hurts worse now than it did intitially, it was eyes that hurt the most! I even went to a neurologist thinking I had a brain tumor b/c one pupil was larger than the other. He diagnosed migraines w/ persistant aura b/c I see this swirling thing when I am outside in bright light and visual snow and after images, lights etc... Nothing he gave me helped though, just strong anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers. I have also started an anti-inflammatory diet, green tea and lots of veggies, protien, fruit, and evening prim rose oil supplement.
I hope this helps, I know my oral surgeon had prescribed a hard upper splint for me, but my insurance doesn't cover it and i's 900$ so until I find a job I have to deal with this. I had to qiut my teaching job b/c of this but after the massage I had my life improved 100% so it's worth it. There are lots of things they can try for tmj and myofascial pain but nothing is a for sure thing. Mostly trial and error so hang in there. I am now having problems with my throat to top it all off, but I think its connected. I know my mysofacial symptoms have taken 2 months to resolve but I am functioning normally now so try some of those things and find a good tmj/myofascial pain doc. Where do you live? I know a good one in northeast ohio, so let me know and any other questions.

Amanda

Hi amanda,

thanks so much for your reply. I am not glad to hear that you suffer from the same things, but after so many tests and seeing so many Dr. And being told I was fine, I was being to wonder what was wrong with me. I just never imagined that tmj could cause such a wide array of problems. So it's the tight balls of pressure in your neck that cause the pain and problems in the eyes? I can feel them and they kill and I try to massage them but just touching it makes me feel sick. I have been to 2 different chiropractors but they have made it worse. I feel like everything hurts and my dentist has never heard of anything but pain in the jaw and troubles opening your mouth. Did you get the flexeril prescription from your oral surgeon? I will definately try the neuromuscular massage! I don't have insurance coverage so I am not really open to trying new mouth guards etc. Given my past experiences.

I'm sorry to hear you had to quit your job. I have a 20 month old daughter and it's really hard to make it through the day with my eyes. I mean it's hard to see and blink and focus, things you take for granted.

I live in toronto, canada and there don't seem to be many specialists around here.....Have you heard of any :) I am basically done wasting my time with my dentist; she doesn't seem to have the least bit of compassion and tmj seems to be out of her realm.

Take care,

janice

Hi janice, i'm sorry your dentist hasn't helped you! Do you have a regular doc? They might be able to help you with some prescriptions or if all esle fails go to the e.R, I had to twice and they gave me prescriptions. Mostly you just need to try to relax those muscles, are you married? Your husband or a friend could massage your neck and shoulders for you. A couple exercises might help too. First close your mouth and put your tongue on the very last tooth on the top and slowly run your tongue across the top teeth with your lips closed. Also massaging your jaw joint helps break up inflammation. Hope some of this helps!
Amanda

Hi again,

thanks for the tips...I appreciate your help!

Janice

Just found this forum & I have the same eye pain & temple area headaches. I have had tmj for about 8 years, the first time it was all ear pain & it took a year & a half for my family doc & an ent doc to figure it out.

At that time I had an absessed tooth & was grinding on it, once I got that removed, my tmj was better, til lately, I can now press on the gum where that tooth was, with the top wisdom tooth.

Just had both top ones removed yesterday so dont' know if this is going to help or not.

The eye pain, plus the feeling that my jaws are tight as can be, there are days I just cannot even relax them as much as I try and then I tense up everywhere on my face & the eye pain & temple area headaches are horrible.

My insurance won't pay a dime, so I am trying home remedies, heat, relaxation etc. As much as I can, to control this.

There are days it's unbearable though. I was no pain meds & anti-inflams for back pain a year ago & don't want to ever be on all those meds again! Some of them are horrible to get off of, plus non steroidal anti-inflams can also cause eye problems, so it's the double edged sword, the meds can cause as many problems as the problem itself.

Just wanted to let you all know that the eye pain & headaches are truly a part of tmj. I also worry that it is something worse, but I think we all do that when they pain is that bad.

I'll check back & see how all are doing & let you know if the wisdom teeth romoval has helped.

Glad to have found this forum.

Blondee