My Clenched Jaw and Me

And my new tooth grinding proble.

Not ideal in a trigeminal neuralgia world..

I started grinding my teeth in the night two weeks ago. I felt it immediately when I woke up one morning. My jaw was aching, my teeth on the right side were sensitive (including my tooth with a dental bridge that I definitely do not want to be upsetting) and I had a tension headache.

I could also feel myself tensing my jaw during the day and at least this meant I could stop myself.. except when I couldn’t. My jaw wants to sit tight and I can’t seem to stop doing it now.

Reader, this is not just a little grinding in the night. This is uncontrollable, almost constant clenching.

I remember when I first got trigeminal neuralgia, I was convinced I was making it worse by having a tense jaw and I remember trying to hang my mouth open trying to make it stop.

My immediate concern was my dental bridge, because I have had a saga with dental appointments all over winter, but my second realisation was that I needed my right side of my mouth in working order, or I actually wouldn’t be able to eat, due to not being able to chew on my left side with my TN.

What happens when you want help with tooth grinding, you might be wondering? A whole load of being passed back and forth between different people is apparently what happens.

In blind hope, I started off by Googling how to stop it and if any medication would help, from the array of different medication I have at home, but that wasn’t really giving me any answers. I tried taking a couple of Zapain before bed, which I assumed would make me sleep harder so my jaw would be less active. This was terrible, I woke up groggy and it hadn’t worked (obviously).

I did briefly eye up the amitriptyline, but my better judgement took hold, thankfully.

I booked a dentist appointment online for the next week, then upon confirming the appointment online, I realised that my dental bridge might not survive 8 days with me constantly biting down on it for 8 hours a night minimum, so I rang up and pleaded with the receptionist for an appointment sooner. I got one for the Monday morning, but this was Thursday and, after we got off the phone, I decided to try to book a GP appointment.

Trying to book a GP appointment is not for the weak. My surgery has implemented a new system where you log your symptoms online and then get triaged and allocated an appointment (in person or telephone). Every time so far that I’ve attempted to do the e-consult, me and the system have not got along, so I was quite impressed when I managed to send through my request for help, with all the correct symptoms and problems through to the GP.

Then I was met with an email saying that I’d been triaged, but needed to see a dentist as doctors do not deal with dental problems.

A small hurdle.

I rang the GP reception and explained that I was going to see a dentist, however I needed to stop grinding my teeth at the source. I assumed my medication might be wrong, or hoped there would be some medication I could take to maybe calm my jaw muscle.

The receptionist made me an appointment for the next morning, which I thought was surely too good to be true. Spoiler alert: this is me, it obviously was too good to be true.

I took myself down to the GPs in the morning, only to be met with an Advanced Nurse Practitioner, who was very lovely, but ushered me into his room saying “I don’t know why you’ve been booked in with me, I’m not a doctor and I can’t help you with this”. He did sort out a doctors call back for me, but wrote on my medical notes: “Looks well. Alert, but emotional”. Forever now preserved in my records.

So I sat in a nurse’s room at 8am on the Friday, just unconsciously tensing and consciously relaxing my jaw, waiting for a miracle, whilst the nurse did my blood pressure three times in the hope it would drop and asking if I need the mental health team instead of everything else, and by then, I was wondering if that would be a faster option to at least see anyone who’d be able to write me a prescription.

I also work (you wouldn’t think so with all my time spent doing appointment based admin for myself), so I was thinking of my emails piling up and that probably wasn’t helping my stress levels in my already tense body.

I went home and got a call from the GP, who added to the days ridiculous admin notes on my medical records with “denies any stresses in life”, because I said that nothing had happened to cause me to be grinding my teeth with stress over the past few days.

I have been prescribed a beta blocker, propranolol, to see if that stops me clenching and also to take before bed to stop me grinding my teeth at night. I think it only works if I take more than the prescription dose and I’m due another call with the GP this week to let him know how I got on, so I’m pretty sure I’m about to be told off for how I’ve been taking it and probably banned from another prescription due to the worry of me overdosing on something that causes low blood pressure anyway.

I just want my jaw to have a break. I’m surprised I haven’t really set off my trigeminal neuralgia this last few weeks, because my mouth has barely had a moments rest.

The dentist has also made a small adjustment to my dental bridge, but said she’ll make me a mouth guard for at night should I not get sorted from a medication point of view.

So, three appointments later and a fourth this week and a new medication, I don’t know if I’m any better off and I’m now in the tooth grinding, clenched jaw club.