[Noisebridge-discuss] Electromyography and Temporomandibular Joint Disorder

[Scotty Allen]

If you haven't already, you might also look into trigger points as a
potential cause/exacerbation. I haven't dealt with TMJ directly, but
trigger points were the key to solving some chronic neck pain for me,
and I've heard they're often very integral to TMJ as well.  Trigger
points are basically just sections of muscle that gets all balled up
due to continually being in a contracted state, and they cause crazy
amounts of pain, often in different areas of your body (ie, neck
trigger points causing head pain), presumably due to crosstalk in
nerves.  The best part is that they're very self treatable using
massage.  It's pretty rapid feedback so it's easy to experiment with.
 I'd recommend grabbing a copy of The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook
(http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-Treatment/dp/1572243759/),
and seeing if it makes any impact for you.  The workbook gives a bunch
of good anatomy lessons on where common trigger points occur, what
sort of pain they tend to cause, and how to massage them to try and
get them to calm down.

Hope that helps!

-Scotty

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:00 AM, Rameen <emprameen at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been having more temporomandibular joint problems than usual, and upon
> a little research found that the cause might be due to jaw clenching or
> 'Bruxism'. It hurts to use my jaw for anything other than breathing and
> talking and I've got a mild chronic headache. Probably some nerves for
> movement and sensation are being pinched...
>
> There seem to be a range of treatments depending on the causes, and among
> many Wikipedia listed this one:
>
> Nighttime EMG biofeedback (for instance by using a biofeedback headband) can
> be used to reduce bruxism and thus reduce or eliminate the ongoing nightly
> cycle of damage that contributes to the majority of TMJ disorder symptoms.
>
> This could be exactly what I need.
>
> If anyone has access to this, or any information on how I'd get my hands on
> one for a short while, please let me know! My face is in pain, and any help
> would be appreciated.
>
> (Also, it seems like this device could have a large number uses, such as
> inducing lucid dreaming, perhaps?)
>
>
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