Trying to understand why you have TMJ requires wading through a sea of bad information. Knowing what is truth and myth regarding your TMJ requires learning more about it. It’s also helpful to know why your sleep apnea diagnosis is tied to TMJ.
Spark Sleep Solutions in Santa Cruz has been helping dozens of patients like you deal with and treat both diagnoses. They are more than just a sleep apnea dentist in Santa Cruz. They are experts in their field.
Sleep Apnea Doesn’t Cause TMJ
Sleep apnea doesn’t cause TMJ. However, sleep apnea can make TMJ symptoms worse. A lot of patients with sleep apnea tend to sleep with their mouths open or sleep slack-jawed with their lips and jaws not fully closed. Some patients sleep with their jaws tight together, grinding their teeth all night.
Those patients who have sought out Santa Cruz sleep apnea treatment still report symptoms of sleep apnea, despite experiencing far fewer symptoms related to sleep apnea itself. This points to the fact that TMJ persists, even when sleep apnea is successfully treated, and that TMJ is not caused by sleep apnea.
TMJ Symptoms Can’t Make Sleep Apnea Worse
There’s this constant play of negative symptoms between TMJ and sleep apnea. The pain, sliding joints of TMJ, and slipping and grinding of teeth make it impossible to sleep, which in turn exacerbates sleep apnea. Waking up often as a result of TMJ issues means that even the best treatments for sleep apnea may not be fully effective so long as the TMJ isn’t treated.
Oral Appliances for TMJ Can’t Be Used If You Have Sleep Apnea
On the contrary, devices used to control snoring also reposition the jaws and help hold the jaws in position. While your jaw joints may still be a little achy in the morning from an oral appliance for sleep apnea treatment, they will not hurt quite so much without the Santa Cruz sleep apnea treatment.
A Combined Sleep Apnea and TMJ Treatment Can’t Work
Yes, actually, a combined treatment for sleep apnea and TMJ can and will work. When you address the teeth grinding, jaw laxity, clenching, and other overlapping nighttime symptoms of the two disorders, you get relief from both. Not every sleep apnea dentist in Santa Cruz has the ability to create such an oral appliance, but Spark Sleep Solutions does.
Finding out More About the Two Disorders
When you are diagnosed with one or both of these disorders, it helps to learn all you can. Keep a sort of medical diary about your symptoms for about a week to see which symptoms from sleep apnea and which symptoms from TMJ seem to be overlapping or causing the other.
Then you can show your specialist what you recorded. Tests for both apnea and TMJ can be ordered. Then the specialist can design the right appliance to treat all of the overlapping symptoms of the two disorders. Call Spark Sleep Solutions today for a free consultation!