I used to chew about two pieces of gum every day that i had school for about a total of 1-4 hours a day. One day i got this weird soreness and dull pain in my left jaw muscle, where the jaw connects to the skull. I got scared and completely stopped chewing gum. I looked up online what it could possibly be and the only sensible diagnosis was an early form of TMJ or jaw arthitis.

 

there was basically no further pain until this week when i started eating big meals for christmas. last night my jaw hurt so bad that i couldn't eat my grandmothers christmas dinner and i felt like a [wagon]. all my parents told me to do was take some anti inflamatory pills or get an ice pack.. obviously since this was serious enough to prevent me from eating, i wasn't about to use an ice pack like i fell and scraped my knee or something. anything and everything i read about TMJ and jaw arthritis online gives an extremely bleak outlook and treats it as a life long ailment that you have to live with. I'm 16 years old... my mom's going to call the doctor as soon as he gets back in the office.

 

if no-one has any type of input or can relate an experience with this, consider it a warning: don't make a habit of chewing gum.

Well in my experience its almost never the extreme worse case scenario in all things medical when you look it up yourself. I would like to think its just the muscles soring up, or you got some imflamation (thus why cold ice would help). Have you ever gotten a cramp on your jaw muscles recently? That may of caused some soreness.

Well in my experience its almost never the extreme worse case scenario in all things medical when you look it up yourself.

 

This from me too.

 

Don't get worked up over it, wait for the doctor's say on things before that. :mrgreen:

Sounds like you pulled a muscle in your jaw, which is logical from your habit of chewing gum. An ice pack and avoiding chewing anything unnecessarily (no gum!) will really help, and try to eat soft foods and soup for a couple of days. Of course, see that doctor, but don't tell him about jaw arthritis, it's 99.9% likely to be completely wrong and scaremongering. I wasn't aware that you can even get arthritis at 16, your bones are still growing.

It's not Jaw Arthritis, diagnosing yourrself online is not a good way of working out what your problem is (because it leads to hypochondria). Anyway, I have had the same problem and it's because you've worked your jaw muscles so much that they get to the point of failure and become painful to move. Like for instance, doing heavy reps when working out will cause your muscles to go sore, and if you're not used to it, can inflame the tendons/ligaments.

 

Stop chewing gum for now, and chew slowly, don't try to bite too hard.

See an osteopathic physician who has experience with TMJ.

A sore jaw? Arthritis perhaps... but don't forget the possibility of everywhere cancer.

Diagnosing yourself is a stupid idea.

I've heard of that before, in about a week your jaw will fall off. Trust me, I read it on the internet.

A sore jaw? Arthritis perhaps... but don't forget the possibility of everywhere cancer.

Diagnosing yourself is a stupid idea.

 

Best post I've seen all day. :thumbup:

Diagnosing yourself is a stupid idea.

Its not a stupid idea, better to give yourself a general knowledge of the current condition than trust some doctor you've never seen before who has to pull more things from memory of tests than experience. It's just that while researching so, its easy to believe the worse-case scenario to be the right one so you have to search carefully.