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TMJ or something else?
My sister has PMR. While she was having dental work done, she experienced a sharp pain while the dentist was giving the Novocain shot. The pain shot to her ear and later caused her jaw to be numb and she could hardly open her mouth. Six months later, she is still partially numb, but can open her mouth more. An ENT doctor thought she had TMJ. An oral doctor thinks it’s inflammation to the nerve and prescribed a muscle relaxant and thinks it will take time to go away. I’ve researched it and have found that there might be a link to this and PMR. Anyone experienced anything like this?
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I'm not the best person to ask but the nerve they numb up for dental procedures is a branch of the trigeminal nerve. I had trigeminal neuralgia in addition to PMR. My trigeminal neuralgia symptom at the worst was unimaginable facial pain. A dentist couldn't even touch my face without causing severe facial pain when trigeminal neuralgia was active,
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/trigeminal-neuralgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20353344
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While trigeminal neuralgia isn't treated with Prednisone, my facial pain decreased when I took Prednisone. It was hard for me to accept that it wasn't somehow linked to PMR. I referred to trigeminal neuralgia as my "inflammation alarm." Trigeminal neuralgia was more active when PMR was active,
I had brain surgery for trigeminal neuralgia. The neurosurgeon said it was a vascular problem but not anything like GCA. The neurosurgeon said he did the best he could to fix the problem but now the entire left side of my face and scalp including my left eye and the left side of my mouth are all numb. The neurosurgeon also said that Prednisone was probably helping the inflammation in the area near my brain stem where the problem was.
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1 ReactionMy “TMJ” started with sharp pain too, when I was eating a cookie! The pain became excruciating, like a terrible earache. After several courses of antibiotics for what was thought to be an ear infection, it was determined to be a TMJ issue. I truly believe it is still part of this whole PMR problem. My rheumatologist believes that also.
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1 ReactionHow are you doing now? Are you able to open your mouth without discomfort?
Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry you went through all of this! It certainly makes you wonder if the two conditions were related?!
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1 ReactionIn retrospect ... I think the common denominator was inflammation. It doesn't really matter what diagnosis you have because inflammatory pain isn't good wherever it happens.
Trigeminal neuralgia is associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) which is also an autoimmune condition involving nerves. I didn't have MS but I certainly had trigeminal neuralgia.
My rheumatologist hardly ever referred to any specific diagnosis although she said PMR was my primary diagnosis. More often than not she referred to my condition as "systemic inflammation" as if the inflammation had no boundaries.
I think we would all be better off if the focus of treatment was to treat the inflammation and not a diagnosis. There are many mechanisms that can cause pain from inflammation. They are referred to as "inflammation pathways" that are regulated by a complex network of cytokines. For PMR/GCA the IL-6 cytokine is implicated the most.
In my case the medication that blocked the effects of the IL-6 cytokine also has stopped my PMR symptoms. It was more complicated than that but I'm much better than I was. At least my symptoms have stopped which was something prednisone never accomplished in more than 12 years.
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1 ReactionI had a similar experience in just one side of jaw- stiff and clicking
but it resolved itself after a couple of weeks. All my seasonal allergies increase PMR- I think the idea of systemic inflammation may be a reasonable approach to weathering this condition.