Chronic Pain

Hi everyone, I wanted to see if I could get people's opinions on my symptoms.

For about the past two years, I have been waking up with headaches about once a week, on average. When I say on average, I mean I could have 2 in one week and then go a couple of weeks without one.

These headaches start out in the back of my head near the base of my neck and then move to either one temple or the other. The pain lasts for about 12 hours and nothing I can take or do gets rid of them. I just have to let them go away on their own. There are times when the throbbing in my temple moves to the back of my eye on the same side of my face and it feels like someone is squeezing my eyeball, sometimes to the point of making my eye tear.

I have been to a neurologist and had an MRI done and they found nothing wrong. I recently went to a sleep disorder neurologist and he suggested a sleep study to measure for apnea or other sleep breathing disorders that may cause the headaches. I tend to think it is not apnea.

I sometimes get ringing in my ears (one or the other) that seems random an usually lasts only a minute or too. I also find that I tend to clench my jaw when I am under stress. I can usually catch myself doing this and stop as soon as I notice.

However, I am concerned that I may be clenching my jaw in my sleep and that may be the cause of my infrequent headaches. I tend to have very vivid dreams so I am wondering if I am clenching my jaw during dreams and the reason for the infrequency of my headaches is because I don't always have dreams that would cause my jaw to clench.

Any advice or insight? Thanks.

Scott

Sounds like it could be TMJD, sounds like it could be a lot of things.

I've had all the symptoms you describe, from the type of headaches, especially the temple and eye pain. I occasionally get the ringing in the ears too. Those are probably fairly generic symptoms that could be caused by any number of things though.

If you think you may be clenching while sleeping, you could discuss that with your dentist. They could look for signs of it and possibly suggest a night guard for you.

I think if it were TMJD, the MRI should have shown something, but I really only know what I'm going through with it, so perhaps not.

A sleep study can't hurt. At least then you could rule out apnea.

Thanks, but I actually am pretty certain now that it is clenching, based on symptoms described here: http://www.drjimboyd.com/book/7th_sth.htm

and I have made an appointment with a dentist to have one of these made: http://www.nti-tss.com/

Yes, I agree with Alex. Unfortunately TMJ disorder has been called "The Great Imposter" because it cam mimic so many different problems.
The sleep study couldn't hurt - maybe they could give you more insight into the clenching theory?
Sincerely,
Stacy

Scott_

I am with Alex and Stacy. I hope everything goes well with the dentist. Please keep us posted in what happens...........