Has anyone fixed their own bruxism?

Being that this is Hacker News, and thinking completely off the top of my head...

I fixed my sleep apnea by sleeping with an oxymeter on. When breathing was obstructed, my blood oxygen dropped. The oxymeter beeped and woke me up. I changed positions, and went back to sleep, ultimately changing sleep habits to the point that I can get through most nights without awakening. I was able to avoid using a CPAP that way.

Perhaps a muscle tension sensing device, such as https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13723 could serve a similar function. Place the sensors on your jaw muscles while you sleep (may only need to be one of them) and if you clench, it beeps or buzzes and wakes you up. May take some inventiveness to integrate it with power and alert, and then to get it comfortable enough to sleep in. And you'd want to avoid any cords that could wrap around you.

It may not lead to a cure, but might give you an idea of what's going on when you clench at night.

In my experience you'll need to build up a toolbox of ways to help solve the root cause.

For the past 10 years I've been lightly grinding my teeth. Previous partners have noticed it at night and my dentist has suggested a mouth guard in the past to help.

I hate the feel of a mouth guard so avoided the suggestion for years and also avoided trying to solve it. But in the past 3 years i accidentally discovered the root cause and have been using various methodologies that as a side effect have mostly got it to stop.

Root cause: Trauma. (this can be either mental and/or physical)

The body will attempt to protect you in different ways. Tension, clenching, stiffness, etc. These are short term strategies which can be useful. But if the trauma isn't worked out it can leave the sympathetic nervous system in a heightened state.

Toolbox: (I like this metaphor because it's never one "trick" to fix things)

* Therapy - Seems obvious in retrospect but i was very skeptical at first. I ended up seeing one who specialized in mindfulness & cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). But you'll want to see what system works best for you

* Acupuncture

* Meditation practice

* Literally learning how to breathe (i would oddly hold my breath)

Using this toolbox has been a life-changer for various "bugs" in my life. Many i wrongly assumed were unfixable.

All of this has led me to feel calmer. Which has relaxed my body and helped with my posture. I can sleep better, and this lowered heightened state has largely removed my jaw clenching.

Find a way that works for you. But know that it's not a forever issue <3

I've had problems with bruxism for decades. Dentist said it was stress, he gave me a mouthguard and I proceeded to break it. I would still grind my teeth even if I was super relaxed.

I now do something that has reduced my bruxism by a LOT:

Mouth taping.

My dad's old college roommate is a bruxism expert and wrote to me:

"Bruxism is the body's attempt to dilate pharyngeal muscles to open the airway and facilitate breathing. You probably snore and or have sleep apnea."

Mouth taping solves this because it forces my body to breath thru the nose vs the mouth and consequently I get more oxygen and much better sleep.

Add a magnesium supplement to this and I'm doing so much better.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I had bad allergies and have asthma so I learned bad breathing habits early on. AKA mouth breathing.

A simple test: Where is your tongue resting right now? If it's at the bottom of your mouth, you're probably a mouth breather. And that's not good!

Two things:

1. Reducing caffeine intake. The science seems to be fairly conclusive that high caffeine intake is associated with bruxism.

2. Magnesium supplementation. Here the science is a bit less clear: I haven't found any study tying magnesium to bruxism, but there are studies correlating magnesium deficiency with conditions related to bruxism, such as anxiety and muscle tension. In any case I think the risks of magnesium supplementation are low.

I will say that my experience with grinding my teeth stopping was that it probably went away because of changes that were out of my control that made my life much less stressful. But those aren't much good as interventions.

For me it was definitely stress related. The shittier the job the worse it got. I realize this is not a solution for everyone but what fixed it for me was to leave North America altogether and move to a country in Europe where it doesn’t feel like companies are employee grinding machines, with sustainable work week length and hours expectations, and 6 weeks PTO a year.

OP I would seriously look into reducing stress. Maybe that means scaling down your business, or learning to say no, or getting better work and life habits... I don’t know you so I can’t specifically tell bit id look in that direction.

I don't grind my teeth, but one thing I do is that I hold my breath when I'm thinking or doing something irritating like reading bad docs. When I started programming two years ago, I thought that it would be impossible for me to continue because I was stuck too often and didn't breathe. It got a little better since then.

I have wear on my teeth from cronic grinding during sleep years ago when I was objectively under huge stress but felt fine . I suggest you write out every possible source of stress you can think of or guess might by in your subconscious past, present ant future. Past e.g. difficult experiences. Present: e.g. financial, relationship. Future: e.g. getting old, sick unable to work. Do this every day expanding on the previous day for a month. I can't say for sure if this stopped my problem but my grinding did stop and never returned.

I had exactly what you describe, with similar root causes. A 360 degree x-ray showed uneven wear of the jaw bone at the condyles (where lower jaw meets upper jaw)

One set of botox injections into the masseter muscles completely solved this. About $250 (a cosmetic type procedure performed by doctor). It has never returned, it’s been about 3 years.

When I was 28, I presented with terrible TMJ pain. Turns out my sleep apnea led to grinding my teeth at night, putting horrible strain on my TMJ all night. Got a mandibular advancement device (MAD) and fixed both issues in like day. Changed my life, slept great, felt great. But, these devices only work for 8-10 years before your jaw permanently changes and your bite starts misaligning toward underbite. So I slowly transitioned over to CPAP when I felt my teeth were no longer snapping back into place in the morning. After 3 years of CPAP and no MAD, my jaw is 95% back to normal. So keep that in mind. I'd also recommend getting a back-up dental appliance in case yours breaks, or learning how to use CPAP now while you don't need it. Some of the worst stress of my life was when my MAD broke and it took months to get a new one...ugh, I still have latent traumatic responses thinking about that point in my life. I had moved jobs and insurance so finding someone who would do it required significant searching. Medical insurance hates paying for MADs, you gotta make sure you have a solid TMJ disorder diagnosis from an MD and then find a dentist that will do it.

I've been reading this book "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" by James Nestor. He attributes this sort of thing to, effectively, "mouth breathing", and suggests it can be fixed by learning to breath correctly (through the nose).

I have no idea if it's bullshit or not, but it's compelling. Would love to hear from anyone that has insight into this.

I never used to grid the teeth but in last 6 years due to work stress I put on weight, sleeping cycle got messed up and just last year in may my dentist told me that I grind my teeth. I tried the mouth guard for few months which seemed to work. But these things are expensive. 6 months back I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea so the sleep specialist suggested CPAP. Surprisingly with the CPAP machine I have completely stopped grinding my teeth. It makes me wonder that teeth grinding is highly correlated to breathing and quality of sleep.

Two things has greatly reduced it and it resulted in a significant change in general QOL for me; 1. bite guard when sleeping. 2. jaw relaxation exercise program.

I have a malocclusion however. So ymmv perhaps.

Ask your dentist for a jaw relax program. It's just 5-6 simple exercises you do with your jaw, (I could upload a copy of my pdf if you'd like).

Something I'm looking into now is myofunctional training/exersices (haven't tried yet). The "science" on it doesn't seem 100% yet, and mostly promoted by one company. Thoughts?

Edit: forgot to mention that physiotherapy helped immensely as well. I had poor posture/forward tilting head, which i believe i feel into due to my malocclusion. Perhaps be wary of aches/bad alignment/discomfort in neck and shoulders and see whether physio for that could help alleviate.

1. try lots of night guards, don’t stop just when you find one you can sleep with. Some offer even more comfort, etc. that can reduce clenching or soreness beyond just preventing grinding.

2. muscle relaxers if your doctor thinks it can help.

3. reducing stress

4. improve sleep posture and quality of bedding

5. establish rigorous sleep habits, like when you stop eating at night, when you stop using devices, adequate darkness, temperature control

No solution is guaranteed, it will be different for everyone. For me personally the main thing was trying many night guards even after finding one I could sleep with.

The most frustrating thing for me is that clenching recurs with work stress. I’ve talked to endless doctors and counselors about it, basically nothing anyone can do to help.

Hey, I used to struggle with jaw clenching, nonstop. My masseters were huge, I looked something like a chipmunk and by the time I found a solution I was having continuous daily pain. I realized I needed help when one day I caught myself rocking back and forth just to cope with how much pain I was in. Saw multiple specialists at several different hospitals.

Full-stop, the most helpful thing was physical therapy. The process itself was super painful, there were exercises we did involving pinching the muscle and me opening my jaw which were easily some of the most piercing moments of my life. There were also these metal scraping things we used which would leave my whole face red and inflamed for many hours. But I would walk away from a session feeling like my muscles were looser.

I think it took about 3 months to get to the point where I was no longer in continuous pain at home. About 6 months (and several thousand dollars of PT - $70 three times a week adds up) until I was comfortable dropping PT.

Two other things that helped, though difficult to know exactly how much:

1. Braces. I had braces a second time in my 20's because it was supposed to help. I think in the end they weren't necessary and PT alone would have been enough. Certainly the pain was gone long before the braces were gone. But my teeth are straight again, so I guess that's a win.

2. An awareness app that beeped at me every 15 minutes. The beep meant "check your jaw, put some space between your teeth (like 1mm) and unclench your muscles". Over time I was able to gain awareness and control over all the muscles in my face and neck and forcibly relax them. I don't think this would have been effective without the PT, my muscles were locked into place when I started PT and it was only the PT that got them loose again.

If I were to start struggling with this issue again, I'd go back to PT and I'd set up a 15 minute beeper again.

Can't stress enough how much PT helped. Through the 6 months, we ended up targeting probably every muscle group from the shoulders up. They were all tense together, and there's no way I would have found all of those muscles on my own, nor identified how much they worked together in causing all the clenching. It really was a whole-face-and-neck problem.

Yes! In my case was just a matter of head position on the pillow + stress. With half head on the pillow and half off, my jaw was hanging and I unconsciously tightened my teeth all nigh long in order to keep my mouth closed. Problem solved after 2 months of hell and 2 dentists, the first of which wanted to remove my perfectly sane wisdom teeth. Also, dedicating more time to extra work activities, instead of work, helped a lot.

About 10 years ago I slept with a headband my dentist recommended that could detect clenching and would beep. It would wake me up just enough to stop clenching. It was horrible sleep but worked after awhile and I stopped clenching at night and didn’t need the headband anymore. I still sleep with a nightguard regardless. Don’t remember the name of the headband, sorry. I got rid of it years ago.

Take my argument with a grain of salt. I'm not an expert. But, if nothing helped you. I can give you my experience.

What really helped me. I went from grinding a lot to almost nothing. Was, I fixed my teeth. My front teeth was a bit worn out from acid drinking and food taking. Though, they looked quite normal. My problem was that my teeth where porous. Acid always slipped into to the pores, which cause my teeths to hurt(more like itching, think like a small scratch whom). Not even brushing my teeths or washing them with listerin helped, because the acid slipped very deep into the pores. Dentists couldn't see from any xray scan what was wrong, so they refused to give me any treatment that would remove some parts of the teeth. It took me a lot of effort to convince a dentist to get me something that almost resembles a teeth crown(it was more like a filling). After getting these teeth crowns, me and my wife have not noticed any teeth grinding since.

I'm beginning to suspect whether bruxism is caused by the body's reflex to tooth ache? Note, I have amateur researched this topic a lot and I don't quite bought the argument of stress, but I was pretty convinced about the argument of the body's reaction to insufficient oxygen. But, I didn't quite bought this argument either. Because, if we worn out our teeth, it would be naturally deselected by Darwin's law a long time ago. Since, we would have a small deficiency of chewing. And it would be strange if only humans did tooth grinding and not other animals? But, what we humans have been doing a bit more recently is having an increased acid consumption, which lead to my argument if bruxism is just a reflex to tooth ache?

Note, there are treatment like (epoxy??) that can fill the pores, though it didn't helped with my ache. Once, the tooth ache was gone, so was my teeth grinding.

Try this from my experience. During the day, you may not notice, sometimes you would clench your teeth slightly, that’s why you may not notice it. When ever you start to notice, open your month wide a few time for a few seconds. And keep doing that, it helped to reverse habits. Would take a while to reverse the longer you had it, but be persistent.

I use an NTI: https://nationaldentex.com/products/headache-therapy/nti-tss...

Well, two actually; one of the top and one on the bottom. It prevents the jaw from clenching at night.

Same here. I have the impression that it has improved by

a) having a softer pillow.

b) having a hard guard. Before that I had a gummy-like guard. According to the new dentist the was making the bruxism worse.

One counterintuitive thing to consider: poor air quality and allergies can contribute to bruxism by making it more difficult to breathe thru your nose. I fixed my allergies via immunotherapy and air quality via a filter and my bruxism dropped dramatically.

So I clench my jaw and infrequently wake up gasping for air (like once a month). Does anyone have any recommendations for a sleep study at home to determine sleep apnea? I don’t feel comfortable going to a hospital right now to get a proper study done.

Look, there are two ways to approach this.

1) Physical source

The source could be physical, so you should go to an orthodontist to get a professional perspective. I've heard of people doing a minor surgery to solve the problem.

2) Emotional source

The source could also be emotional, as you mentioned. Then, you should seek professional help (from a therapist) to learn how to deal with the stress you are feeling. This could mean simply rewiring how you deal with stress, exercising more often or take medicine.

Sometimes, you simply need to pay attention to how physically tense you are due to work and try to relax your whole body.

I suffer from the bruxism as well and I got significantly better by going to therapy.

I’m surprised no one on here has mentioned CO2 levels yet. A simple CO2 monitor will tell you if your ambient co2levels are too high. Modern, newer homes are like sealed boxes and high levels can exacerbate breathing issues and by extension, bruxism problems.

I was waking up with headaches after moving into a new apartment. When I first got and plugged in a monitor the alarm went off because the ambient air was >3000ppm. Now that I’ve correct the issue with airflow, I sleep better and don’t wake up with headaches.

I recently finished a popular dental alignment program, where you have to wear aligner trays in your mouth for 22 hours a day. It solved my clenching problem, but I’m not sure why. I suspect it’s because the aligners created a Small gap between my bottom and top teeth, which is making it very hard to clench now. With the aligners on, clenching became very uncomfortable too because you feel like you’re going to snap the damn things.

Probably a bit of a stretch to pursue dental aligners to fix your bruxism, but hey!

Actually yes, when it was quite an issue I made sure I sleep on a high pillow. Just by mechanics it's more difficult to chew on your teeth. Also back then I only slept on either multiple pillows or thick pillows that are meant for sofas to have the head higher, just by mechanics it's more difficult to chew. Also I started the habit to eat chewing gum regularly, it makes the jaw muscles more tired at night. And, holding your head up high during the day helps. Especially when sitting on the computer, I highly recommend using an external screen, so your head is straight.

That in combination was already a game changer.

Also I started the habit to do light sports at least once a week, although that was mostly because of back pain. The bruxism practically vanished after I went to the psychologist to treat my anxiety. It was a treatment without pills, just talking and learning new methods. In my case it was a Systemic Therapy (I think combined with CBT - though I'm not sure) but YMMV and I think you need to choose someone you're comfortable with. For me the priority was to pick someone that I'm comfortable with, that seems to be specialized in what I think might be the overall issue and that seems to adhere to modern methods. Whenever I feel tense when going to sleep, I do Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) which was a recommendation from the Psychologist. There are audios on the internet which guide you through this, takes 10-15 minutes but now I just do it myself in 2 minutes. It's kind of a non-issue for me now, I cannot remember the last time I woke up with my teeth hurting because of that, the last series must have been years ago.

Probably not relevant to OP, but FWIW bruxism is often associated with sleep apnea. If you grind at night and are tired during the day, get a sleep study.

In my experience teeth grinding is cause by too much coffee and alcohol. My clenching/grinding always eases up when I abstain from those

After I lost faith in western medicine's ability to help me with this problem I started tinkering and have come to the conclusion it's related to my breathing problems: mild sleep apnea and sinus inflammation.

The first thing I did was start sleeping predominantly on my sides and stomach, which turns out is how people sleep in nature[1]. This made my apnea all but disappear.

Then after I noticed my sinuses react to dietary changes I went on a carnivore diet -- basically only meat -- for an extended period of time and my sinuses fully cleared up. Right now I deviate from the diet a bit but I remain cautious and it's working out well.

When my breathing improved my clenching subsided.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119282/

I suffered from mild bruxism about 10 years ago and have had several bouts of TMJD where I couldn’t close one side of my jaw. For me, the key has been poor posture induced by stress; these bouts coincide with heavy laptop and mobile phone use (neck angle forward and down). What fixed it for me was switching to a good desktop set-up whenever possible and self-treatment via Kelly Starrett’s Becoming A Supple Leopard (there is whole section in the second edition on neck and jaw). He has good general advice in this video as well - https://youtu.be/kfg_e6YG37U

I haven’t used the mouthguard now in probably 5 or more years.

Hey, pretty much got over dealing with this on-off for 2.5 years due to a combination of depression, stress and a herniated disk in my neck. For the physical side, you gotta see a PT - the neck especially could take a while to see progress. Even simple PT exercises initially aggravated the issue, go real slow and at your own pace. It's taken me 3 months of consistent PT to sleep pain-free. For the mental side, I recommend a therapist and mindfulness/meditation.

Learning to sleep on my back was really important too - I used to roll over onto my stomach a bunch - get a sleep study done if you can

TIL that this thing had a name. I used to clench my teeth unconsciously for around two years, until one day I broke a premolar. The reason was mostly anxiety, unhappiness, etc. I was aware of my mental state but completely unaware of the clenching. Surprisingly (or not) focusing on the clenching helped me relax my jaw as well as my mind. Kinda like what is taught in Vipassana ... just trying to be mindful of what the body is doing helped me get out. I still find myself clenching my jaw some times, but I quickly relax when I do.

EDIT: added a missing "body _is doing_"

Possibly look into "mewing" i.e. orthotropics which deals with proper oral posture, breathing, and swallowing.

You could also try just putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth when your mouth is closed (which is what you should be doing anyways). Your tongue is actually what is supposed to help get your jaw to stay up with a suction hold against the roof of your mouth, and if you don't have your tongue in that position then you will have to use only your jaw muscles which can cause to much pressure.

When I developed a clenching habit, I resolved it by training myself to put my tongue in the correct position in my mouth. It is pretty simple: with your lips closed but your teeth not touching, place the tip of your tongue right where your gums and your two top front teeth meet. That's it. At first it takes effort but once the habit and muscle memory develops it'll happen naturally. This eliminated my bruxism because now my jaw has a healthy resting state.

A previous dentist recommended -- paradoxically -- actually clenching your teath consciously a few times for a few seconds each time before going to sleep. The logic for this was something like how it would make your brain more conscious of what was going on to prevent it from happening when you were asleep. I think the other suggestions here on reducing stress, reducing weight, getting enough magnesium and so on might work better though?

If you have not seen a doctor, do so. Dentists are not MDs. They can help you fix or prevent damage caused by grinding but they are not qualified to diagnose or treat the cause despite what they may tell you.

Also don't take medical advice from strangers on the Internet (or request it, because you just end up helping to generate more insidious noise that will show up in search results for decades).

I don't know anything about this particular ailment. But look at the literature for fixing your posture. That also involves changing what your body is doing at rest while you are not paying attention.

Some of the principles involved in changing your posture (often involving which muscles are kept relaxed and which stretched) might very well apply to helping you relax your jaw muscles.

A proper mouth guard will prevent your jaw from closing 100% and will unprogram the clinching behavior.

Mine is triggered by: caffeine after 1 pm, cold sleeping conditions, sustained stress like job stress or family health stress. Maybe related to acid reflux. Also I sleep on my back to keep force off my jaw. Probably more and maybe related to congestion, too.

I recently got a mouthguard that sits on my bottom set of teeth and prevents me from closing my jaw entirely, which I wear while sleeping. It helps a lot. I wake up with my jaw muscles feeling loose rather than tight and tender.

Read some of Alexander Lowen's books, he talks about how posture can actually be an indication of something going on emotionally in the person. When people clench their jaw they're said to be grinding through life.

Yes. Cause was stomach gas. How can you belch when asleep? Not properly, at least in my case, and manifestation was bruxism.

Fix was of course, a change of eating habits. Specifically, to work around FODMAP intolerance.

Benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam, works great for me. Keep in mind that such drugs should only be used as last resort and for short periods of time, since it can easily lead to addiction.

Children may manifest bruxism if they have parasites (e.g.,worms).

Parasitic worms were endemic where I was raised. Every childhood physical included required a fecal sample for parasites. Years later, when I returned home, it struck me that I hadn't been tested for parasites in decades. Knowing what I know, I just couldn't believe I had none. So I bought some ivermectin, measured an amount proportional for my weight and slathered it on. Nothing happened that I noticed. Any parasites would almost certainly have been flushed out. Much cheaper than a doctor's visit! And I now have a 5-year supply of parasiticide!

Posts on HN report ivermectin is being tested against Covid-19 so maybe that's a plus!8-))

Most dentists don’t know what they don’t know. You need to see a physiologic dentist: lviglobal.com

If you have an hour, join their fb group and watch their video. It will be quite illuminating.

Does anyone’s jaw click? I can make the right side click at will. I think it’s off aligned. It’s not sore but I think it must be common enough that someone knows the cause?

The ideal natural position of your jaw is actually when your teeth (lower and upper range) don't touch, with a 1 or 2cm gap, and with your tongue touching your palate

Mine was stress related. I switched jobs and it went away.

Reducing stress levels is key: yoga, exercise, omit caffeine, omit alcohol, eat well, spend time with family and friends, don't forget to breathe.

I'm surprised that's how it's called in English. It's very similar to how we called it in Portuguese. How is it pronounced?

Yes, eliminated it by relaxing for 20 mins before going to sleep. Otherwise the stresses of the day manifest themselves in grinding.

If you haven't tried eliminating all stimulants like ADD meds and/or caffeine, they're obvious places to start.

Two friends of mine have cured jaw tightness by taking methylfolate.

It may not work for you, but it's cheap to try.

Try magnesium.

so glad you posted this, I was wondering the exact thing coincidentally... My dentists always notice it and try to get me to spend $600 ish on a guard. i currently just use a cheap one I bought at walgreens

TLDR; Bought a Remi custom night guard online and finally can wake up feeling good

Hey! First I want to thank you for posing the question and I would love to share my experiences with this. Early on during quarantine, I began having a hard time getting through the night. Oftentimes I’d wake up with severe headaches and pain in my jaw, which a late-night google binge taught me are both prominent symptoms of Bruxism.

I found this new sleep & wellness company called Remi (www.shopremi.com) that makes custom night-guards for individuals who struggle with Bruxism. I ordered my night-guard and the entire process was super easy all taking places at home. Remi sent me an “impressions kit”, a do-it-yourself version to make a mold of my teeth. From it, they created my night guard and sent it back to me.

I've been using my night-guard for about a month or so now and I couldn't be happier with the results. I can finally sleep well at night and wake up feeling refreshed.

I’d did, by giving up all soft drinks. Especially Coke.

Taking Magnesium supplements can relieve jaw tension.

for me, cannabis/cbd before bedtime reduces bad dreams and grinding teeth while sleeping

Two options I'd recommend as your priority - and then two different exercises you can try now: a jaw exercise to help relax and strengthen the jaw, strengthening the muscles at an open position vs. how clenching will strengthen them at a grinding position, and a mouth strengthening exercise.

First of two is lower cost, however if you can afford it you may as well go for the higher cost option which will have much higher potent healing potential.

Re: PRP & stem cell treatments

I'd recommend PRP (platelet rich plasma) injections as low cost option for your jaw including the clenching muscles. PRP is healing property concentrate from your blood and is highly anti-inflammatory. That alone could help break the cycle of clenching, and perhaps heal some damage and reduce strains in the muscles.

The more expensive version is using your own stem cells that can potentially heal/regenerate the tissues fully. You'd be prescribed opiates for a number of days and need liquid, soft diet for a few days too. Stem cell treatment would literally be the best experiment you could try. That you mentioned jaw injury makes me feel like it's likely the best route, but if you can't afford the ~$7000 - $9000+ USD + travel and stay costs for stem cell treatment, PRP is usually closer to $1000 but from my own experience only heals maybe the top 20% of pain at a source and not the deeper pains - perhaps a good litmus test where if you feel improvement but not enough then you'd know that stem cells would heal further.

There would be enough stem cells to treat more than your jaw as well, and would be best to also have your neck looked at and treated. Different doctors/clinics have different requirements before treatment such as seeing an MRI of the areas to be treated or where they may only use ultrasound to check and guide them.

I've had my jaw treated multiple times - had a lot of pain from a dislocated jaw, and also a bicycle collision. My jaw pain is arguably 90%+ lower than it used to be. I've had a lot in my body treated, I have a complex pain situation - old injuries that are amplified by central sensitization I developed - so healing even small injuries helps reduce the pain a lot.

There are two places I've gone for treatment multiple times: a doctor in San Francisco, California, who uses adipose/fat derived stem cells (think mini liposuction), and a clinic near Denver, Colorado, that use bone marrow aspirate (drill into hip bone on both sides of Iliac crest to then suck out the marrow); then there's processing they do with it, along with drawing blood to mix the stem cells with PRP to support the healing. You may find a doctor or clinic closer to you, otherwise I'd trust recommending you to them if you'd like their details; I have no incentive for referring them to you, you could tell them I did or not, or hopefully find another place that seems reputable enough to you - I'm just wanting to help people.

Re: Jaw strengthening exercise

As I said the purpose of this jaw exercise is to help strengthen the muscles at an open position, which also helps relax the muscles through the resistance part of the exercise that acts to stretch them.

It's quite simple: 1) Open your mouth enough so your teeth aren't touching (your lips never need to separate) - you'll find what range of open is comfortable as you do the strengthening-stretching. 2) Place the fingers of both hands on your chin - thumbs underneath, other fingers in front with pinkies next to each other just touching above the last joint, with your elbows relaxed down. 3) Start by applying slight pressure diagonally towards the jaw joints which will engage your hands slightly preparing to the hold to begin. 4) It doesn't matter which order you start in: as you gently pull your jaw downward with your fingers, resist by engaging your jaw to keep your jaw from ...

This can stretch out really tight muscles and may cause things like a headache. It will also help stretch fascia as well that if tightened over time will contribute to problems.

Re: Mouth strengthening via oil pulling

Oil pulling will strengthen your tongue and the holistic musculature of your mouth, as well has help stretch it. You can use any type of consumable oil (though you don't want to swallow it) like coconut oil, however sunflower oil is more often recommended in certain holistic health circles as sunflowers can absorb radiation - whether that translates to oil pulling radiation from the body, I'm unaware if there's any research showing that. The mechanism for using oil over say water is that it's viscous - and the goal is to keep moving the oil around as fast as you can for tbe duration: pushing and pulling, swishing through teeth forward and back, and sides of the mouth through the teeth, using suction or pressure with the action of the tongue. Try to do it for 2 minutes when you begin, do it daily to quickly strengthen. Your tongue and other mouth muscles will get tired but you'll feel a difference and how it gets easier each day you do it. Use a tablespoon of oil, though if not enough resistance than add more oil - if too much resistance/difficulty, use less; mouth size varies. Oil pulling is good for your teeth and gums too. Spit the oil out into the toilet, it's often suggested then to rinse your mouth, swishing around like you were, with highly diluted hydrogen peroxide for 5 seconds or so - and can spit that out in sink.

[I'm not a medical professional. This is merely my experience, not medical advice.]

tl;dr yes; using a pacifier

Here's my experience with sleep and other issues that I've been dealing with since the beginning of this year. Some background: I was a moderately active male in my 20s with a perfect BMI. I started a company in January working from home. Prior conditions: Chronic pain in the sternocleidomastoid area when I turn my neck. Chronic RSI that made using computer keyboard painful. Chronic pain behind right eye noticeable when I move it around too much e.g. playing foosball. Chronic ITBS. Chronic constipation and ensuing haemorrhoidal problems. I'd generally consider myself a healthy individual. I believe the average healthy human has dozens of such minor annoyances.

I begun experiencing bruxism (as evidenced by damaged gums from one slightly misaligned tooth in the morning), frequent intense dreams where I'm not breathing, lightheadedness/dizziness and memory problems (including amnesia), worsened chronic neck pain, new chronic right-sided post-nasal drip, inability to concentrate, and breathlessness/high heart rate after just minor exercise or even just standing up for a long time. These issues were triggered/made worse after visiting a proctologist who, in an act of malpractice, medicated me with a drug that made me delirious (it wasn't supposed to) and gave me a severe headache that lasted 2 days. After the headache subsided I was left unable to concentrate on work. I tried, and I didn't even realize there's something wrong for the first couple of days, but my mind was just wandering all over the place and when I looked at my timesheets at the end of the week there were just a couple hours of work done. I gave myself a 3-week vacation, but I didn't see much improvement. I ended up doing no work for three months.

I've been to a dentist, GP, ophthalmology, and ENT and neither had any findings except for a deviated septum. I haven't been to neurology which had been next on my list.

First off, I fixed the haemorrhoids by eating oatmeal with added fibre and psyllium (the doctor didn't even tell me to fix my diet; ironically I read it in a publication that requires the user to declare they're a certified medical professional). Note that my case was just prolapsing without bleeding.

I started going to the gym every other day (20 minutes of light cardio + 25 minutes of strength exercise). This had noticeable impact on the breathlessness/high heart rate. I should note that when exercised too hard it made the issue worse for the rest of the day.

As for the bruxism, my dentist suggested I get braces, but I can't afford that anytime soon so I just got a dummy. I got one that lets some air flow by but not too much so my mouth doesn't get dry. I should stress that the dummy is impossible to swallow. It sounds awkward, but I can measure how bad my bruxism is by how injured my gums are and it's worked flawlessly - they recovered in a couple of days. When a month ago I tried to sleep without it once they got injured again.

I didn't mention that the headache following the medication was much worse in a horizontal position and that it didn't subside fully. When I found myself sleeping on the side or on my stomach I would wake up with a headache. Also whenever I slept on the side, I would get dizzy and have very poor sleep. I adjusted my bed so that my head would be above the body level at all times (my thanks for this advice goes to the NHS website), which helped with the headache. As for the dizziness I fixed that by sleeping on my back with sunglasses on because that doesn't allow me to sleep on the side/stomach, and it also made the bad dreams go away. I wish I got the sunglasses idea earlier.

I moved back in with my parents which relieved my anxiety about spending too much (>half o my expenses were rent). I now drive to do my work away from home, which helps with keeping a regular schedule.

I'd like to stress that I don't know what underlying conditions led to such severe decline. Stress probably played a role as well as everything being shut down due to COVID-19. But in the end I just know the symptoms and what triggered it. Today I'm almost fully recovered. Not at the top of my game as I was before, but I can focus on my work and I've done a lot of progress with my company this month. Also the RSI that made using the keyboard painful is gone.

p.s. I suspected I may have been suffering from sleep apnoea but I had no way to verify. I decided to create an app that tracks breathing using a phone's g sensor and gyroscope. This was when I was starting to recover and I could start doing lightweight programming work. I implemented a Non-uniform DFT-based algorithm that suffices with just one axis from the g sensor to reliably detect breathing while I'm awake with the phone on my stomach. Unfortunately the parameters that work while awake don't work while asleep - the app would wake me up the second I started sleeping, just like holding something in your hand that drops to the floor wakes you at the very moment you fall asleep. I was going to implement data collection and improve the app after collecting enough data, but since I got better I returned to work and I'm not really interested in continuing with this app. If anyone's interested the algorithm's here: https://pastebin.com/aVvh8YDK (sorry about the quality it's very much WIP & my first Dart project at the same time; but I believe it's all the math you need unless you want to go full ML). Here's a demo of the app albeit with just uniform DFT which wasn't great at fitting the data: https://gofile.io/d/cTf1y9

What does your dentist recommend? Start there instead of with anecdotes here.

Following the advice of randos has a good chance of damaging your health worse than it is already.