Why I think Botox is absolutely useless
Lots of folks use Botox for TMJ. But in my view they are wasting their time and perhaps even making things worse.
I see a lot of people in various TMJ groups doing Botox.
And in all of the posts I never seem to see any positive result.
The botox seems to always have done nothing at best… and in a lot of cases it created more issues.
My experience with Botox
Over a decade back i had a lot of tightness in the jaw and neck area. I had it for years all though my 20's and 30's.
And i'd go to all kinds of massage therapists to try to get some relief for it. But the relief was only temporary.
And so when i found out about botox sometime around 2012 or so... it sounded like it was a golden bullet. It would relax all these muscles that seemed like they were endlessly tight.
But i put it off for a bit.
Then in 2014 when a TMJ dentist in Vietnam drilled my back teeth flatter I had massive issues: Physical, neurological, cognitive, etc.
And I was urgently looking for a way out. So i decided to pull the plug on getting botox.
I had huge hopes that it would save me.
Then when i got it done... it basically did nothing. At least nothing helpful.
Later I began learning the power of ‘vertical’
In the years that followed i began understanding why it hadn’t helped. And why in my view it will NEVER help as a long-term fix.
You see in 2015-16 I was realizing the power of adding vertical.
All you needed to do was add vertical and 'unlock the occlusion' (meaning upper & lower teeth slide over one another rather going into a fixed position)... and over time all these muscles begin to relax. Permanently!
This could be achieved with a simple rubber mouthguard (like a Reviv One) or with a flat plane splint.
Why ‘vertical’ works and Botox doesn’t
The reason adding vertical worked and botox didn’t comes down to how this problem works...
…here are some principles:
1- you are not simply relaxing muscles
2- you are stretching soft tissue or as i like to say "inflating the balloon of soft tissue that surrounds the skull". See this article for more on that.
3- by stretching the soft tissue you are allowing the muscles to relax but also doing much more... because you are allowing the jaw and bones to start to revert back to their correct anatomical position over time.
Also, i would not be surprised if Botox is very bad for you. Because it is unnaturally relaxing some muscles that were put into spasm by the body to protect it.
Therefore you are basically overriding the body’s natural defense mechanism, and this likely will result in more structural damage.
Because my experience is consistently that the body does things (eg. pain, spasm etc) to defend itself.
Forget about botox and just get a simple rubber mouthguard
So to wrap up… forget the Botox!
It is useless!
Let all these folks running around using it to get rid of their wrinkles continue to waste their time with it. But do not use it for TMJ!
And just get a simple rubber mouthguard and start wearing it.
Then as you get rid of TMJ issues over time… you will realize that this shit even goes further.
And that you will eventually get rid of your wrinkles like I have.
And you will realize that this biomechanical shit even gets rid of wrinkles far better than that Botox bullshit.
Because it inflates the soft tissue permanently and thus keeps the skin stretched.
Also check out the video