27 years of TMD, splints and FaceFormer training

When I went to the dentist at the age of 20, plagued by constant jaw pain, he diagnosed teeth grinding or TMD and fitted me with my first night guard. Unfortunately, this did not relieve my symptoms in the long term; quite the opposite, things got worse and worse and more symptoms were added over the following 27(!) years. The orthopaedist made insoles to fix the problem from below, and many dentists had new ideas for splints. One preferred a thick one with a high build-up in the upper jaw, the next swore by an almost invisible model that absolutely had to be in the lower jaw.

From headaches, earache and dizziness – at times my hearing would cut out – at some point I had pain and tension from head to toe! Doctor’s visits, physiotherapy, osteopathy – I went through everything there is. At some point I ended up being pigeonholed as a psychological case and was treated accordingly until there was nothing left to try, as I could no longer sleep well at night either and was exhausted as a result. Yoga, autogenic training, qigong and a mother-and-child health retreat did not help, and so sleeping pills, antidepressants etc. became part of my everyday life.

At some point I realised that none of this was a solution, only a relief of my symptoms, but also that no one had seriously identified anything other than stress, a bad childhood etc. as the cause. So a year ago, fairly desperate, I made my last attempt with a local dentist, who referred me to orthodontics. I had already tried that too, to no avail (verbatim at the time: you will have to spend 20,000 euros and we will restore your jaw) …

Following an impulse, I nevertheless made an appointment with the orthodontist and for the first time experienced someone telling me what was very probably the cause of my night-time teeth grinding. The position of my tongue was said to be the problem! For 27 years I beat a path to the door of every doctor and therapist, but I never heard a single word about the tongue resting posture! I must have looked pretty baffled when I was handed the FaceFormer, together with an address for speech therapy. I had a really good feeling, started the training and booked 10 sessions with a speech therapist.

What can I say – after a very short time I already noticed relief in my jaw, and all the other problems in my cervical spine and thoracic spine, the tension and above all the headaches went away within a very short time, and for good.

I am sooooo grateful that after all this time I have finally found the cause – I cannot put it into words for anyone – but the FaceFormer has changed my life 180° for the better. That is why I very much hope that dentists, GPs etc. become aware of this topic and always keep it in the back of their minds with similar problems. My GP, at any rate, is happy to pass it on to her patients!