Lockjaw you say? But isn't that something that happens if you've got tetanus. True enough, it does happen with tetanus, but it can also be associated with a bunch of other stuff. A more general term you might see used online is "trismus" or inability to normally open the mouth. What happens is you start to open your mouth and then BOOM, you realize it's locked and can only open so far. Thus the term lockjaw.
As the weeks have gone on, my jaw has been locked more and more frequently. It happens randomly, but usually is more common 1) right when I wake up in the morning or 2) when I've been laying on my side (putting pressure on my jaw).
It's not usually that painful. Just depends on how hard I have to work to force my mouth open.
When I do get my jaw unlocked there's a massive 'click' sound coming from the jaw itself. As far as I know, there really isn't any other thing you can do than just force your jaw open. After you get it open, just work it out over and over again. This gives you back the range of motion and releases the tension. My jaw clicks most of time now but how loud it is (audible only to me vs. audible to people near me) depends on how recently my last "lock incident" was. It kind of sucks and gets more painful over time, but luckily only one side of my jaw is locking.
I've been unsuccessful in getting the jaw unlocked more than a few times, without either removing the trays and massaging the muscles in my cheek. Once the jaw is unlocked, the trays go right back in. No harm, no foul. It doesn't seem to instigate more locking. I'm going to see what the dentist says about this the next time I go in. Not sure what they'll suggest or prescribe. Just haven't found a lot of useful information about this online when it comes to Invisalign-related lockjaw.
JAN 2013 UPDATE: I'm over halfway through my treatment. Something cool happened
temporarily during the first couple days of my current tray.
If I had to rate my usual lockjaw tension from 1 to 10 -
with 1 being not much tension, and 10 being so tense I can't get my jaw open without multiple attempts - I'm usually anywhere between
6 and 8. When I shoved my current trays on, the lockjaw loosened up for a couple days! It was around a
3 or 4 on days 1 and 2; the usual amount of tension (without pain) returned on day 3. Like I said, it was temporary, but what is cool is that it's a good indicator my bite is starting to get matched up again! Very cool. I can definitely see a lot of
good progress since I started with Invisalign now in lots of places.
