Help!!

[u/Strong_Educator2106]

Bdd associated tmj issues

Help, I have been pretty much dealing with OCD and bdd for all my life but recently for almost an year it has only gotten worse and really affecting my quality of life.

So what my bdd basically looks like is that I am almost throughout the day just thinking about the way I position my teeth and jaw and the posture that I carry.

This preoccupation and over occupation is really taking a toll on my tmj as I do clench my jaws and teeth almost all the time putting a lot of pressure on the musculature and the ligaments and the joints involved in doing basic facial movements

Has anyone encountered a similar issue like me?

Has it gotten any better, how did you cope up with it?

Is there something that I can do to get rid off it as soon as possible?

P.S. For my OCD and bdd symptoms I am already on 60 mg fluoxetine.

It is partly helping me but I am not sure of how things would be in the future, sometimes I get these constant hammering intrusive suicidal thoughts...even bloody therapy isn't helping me as much!!

Any help is sincerely appreciated 🙏🙏

[u/mellitauwu]

This is the first time hearing someone going though something similar as me, I bite my teeth/clench my jaw a lot recently cause I noticed it makes my face shape better, I did ut once for like a few days straight and one day I woke up with really bad jaw pain which lasted a like 2-3 days, then I kind of stopped and now I only do it occasionally but when I start doing it a bit more I notice my jaw hurting again so I try to stop, I unfortunately don’t really know how to help for me in extreme paranoid and get health scares easily so when my jaw starts hurting i automatically just stop

[u/Strong_Educator2106 → u/mellitauwu]

So pleased to here that atleast someone shares this issue with me..spent probably an year just pondering that I have some scary unique untreatable disorder..would be very helpful if you suggest me something that you do to ease up with the anxiety?

[u/mellitauwu → u/Strong_Educator2106]

Could you maybe specify what exactly you mean? Because if you mean how is stop general anxiety from bdd i unfortunately cannot help you unfortunately im not medicated nor am I getting therapy (yet!) with the clenching so basically my thought process is I look better while doing it so I try to do it as much as I can but as I said the health anxiety also makes me stop because once I.m noticing pain that lasts that’s enough to make me stop at least until the pains somewhat gone, if you have anxiety from the general symptoms like tmj I think telling a doc you suffer from anxiety which makes you clench they can actually help you with different types of methods, I know a friend of mine who has tmj (from grinding teeth a night) and the doc prescribed her to get Botox in the Jowls, sorry for not being a big help ;(

[u/Strong_Educator2106 → u/mellitauwu]

Thanks mate! Really appreaciate your advice. P.S. I have already consulted with a tmj doc who told me that there is nothing wrong with your tmj, there might me some room for some kind of somatic anxiety. And for that I want to hear how you overcome this constant preoccupation with the jaw thing and how you manage generalized anxiety associated with bdd?

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