I had TMJ treatment for my popping and clicking on my left joint back in 2023. I purchased a orthotic to prevent damaging the joint further, it never caused pain but X-rays showed some mild bone chip because of long time popping but never had pain. I went through treatment my bite was in a more relaxed position. Skip to late 2025-2026 I been wearing consistently to prevent damage while I save up for braces. I am very dependent on the orthotic so I develop new symptoms on my left joint. When I would take off the orthotic and eat foods I would sometimes get a sudden crack/snap sensation. It would be painless but it threw me off guard I said wtf. After it had crack/snap my joint got wet and squishy again painless but I was worried it was disk damage of some sort. So I used chat gpt and basically said it was normal due to change in bite position.
So I made an appointment with my TMJ doc and she basically said it’s a position issue so I would need braces to address the issue that’s great but I asked her what I can do in the meantime and she basically said there nothing I can do at the time. To me that was kinda of rude giving the fact I paid over 6k to be seen there but she really just ignored my new symptoms. I scheduled for a second opinion here soon but I’m on here seeking if anybody has had same symptoms with the painless crack or even experience new symptoms after orthotic treatment. After those new symptoms emerged I got scared to eat bruh idk it felt or feels like I’m damaging the disk on my left side. It also put me an anxiety/depression state of mind because I don’t have the answers I need. I am getting braces next month cause I got fucked up teeth like over bite and cross bite
Chat gpt quick summary was when your jaw is use to the orthotic position and you take it off to eat by nature it wants to go back to it’s nature state so the disk sometimes gets nudged and said it’s nothing to worry about but how much can I trust chat lol
Please reply if you have similar experiences.