Misaligned bite, TMJ disorder and facial asymmetry
Hi. I was wondering if anyone else have any experience with what i‘m going through and if so, how you solved the problems. Based in the UK.
Long story short, I have to use a mouth guard every night to sleep because I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep. My mum and my sister heard me grinding very loudly at night but I have never heard it myself although I did sometimes wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. I also was experiencing jaw pain and headaches in my temples as well as pain in the area above my top palate in my face.
This was at least three years ago and since then I’ve almost always worn my mouth guard which my dentist made for me to sleep.
However, I don’t like the feel of it despite getting used to it somewhat and i couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I might have to wear this to bed every night for the rest of my life so I decided to start observing my symptoms.
One thing I was always told by dentists and my doctor and the people around me was I was grinding because I was stressed. I couldn’t believe it at first but I decided to do things to help me relax before bed and stopped many things that I believed were contributing to my stress. I’ve been feeling less stressed the past couple of months but my jaw pain is still there and if I go to bed without wearing my mouth guard I get very bad and heavy pain in my temples, jaw, face overall and feel quite light-headed which made me believe that I was, even after 3 years, grinding in my sleep.
Another thing I noticed was facial asymmetry; the right side of my face is bigger and a little droopy compared to my left. My cheekbone on my right is lower than my left, there’s more volume in my right cheek, my right eye is less lifted and also, my teeth on my right are lower than the ones on my left and less uniform; they’re crooked and the upper teeth on my right don’t seem to touch the right lower teeth ( so misaligned bite). I have also noticed that the bone on the right side of my forehead is slightly more protruding than my left and the same with my head actually which was quite shocking. My right shoulder and right hip is also slightly lower than my left.
My nose is tilted more to my right and my doctor examined it lightly and said I have a mild deviated septum but that it was no big deal although I did say I often get a blocked nose ever since childhood.
I have a mouth breather face too and although I did attempt to nose breathe with my mouth shut I found it incredibly painful. Closing my mouth completely makes my jaw and temples ache heavily and when I nose breathe the pain worsens even if my mouth was left open.
I voiced all these concerns to my doctor and she told me to go to the dentist as they can help me better but she did refer me to the maxillofacial department. This was in Nov 2025 and im still waiting for my first appointment.
My dentist couldnt help me at all. They told me to just wear my mouth guard and reduce stress. I didn’t tell them about my misaligned bite as I didn’t notice it at that time. Even after telling them how painful it is they told me the only way is to do what they’ve told me to do.
I don’t completely think that stress isn’t a factor in my life causing this problem but I now know that I have a misaligned bite, crooked teeth and asymmetry on my right and I find it hard to believe that these things aren’t causing anything in this problem…or maybe they are the results of my grinding? I have no idea but I would love to know if anyone is experiencing this or if they have experienced grinding/tmjd without stress being the cause of it.
Thank you for reading it all. That was very long but I think I’ve managed to get all I know out there.