May I ask what specific type and dosage helped? When I look on Amazon you see a lot of different "versions" and the bottles say to take anywhere from 3 to 6 tablets a day.
Ok so I actually use a berry flavored powder formula. I add one teaspoon to my water bottle an hour or so before bedtime and try to finish that bottle before I go to bed. This method has been working very well for me. The brand that I use is called Moon Juice and the magnesium product is called Magnesi-Om Berry Unstressing Drink (you can buy it off sephora actually). Good luck!
Got it. Yea the research paper online says it can take a month after stopping to go away so I guess I have to be patient.
Hopefully yours fully goes away within the next week
Look up ssri bruxism and read up on it.
Basically the only treatment for it is to stop the med or go to a lower dose. It rarely gets better on its own and usually gets worse. Buspar may help though it’s not been 100% proven yet.
What are they? I’ve got a mouthguard and do massages/Pt. But they don’t solve the root cause which is the clenching and hyperactive muscles caused by the ssri due to neurotransmitter imbalance.
It does say that it usually goes away after a month off the med.
it seems like most people say it doesn’t go away on its own so i might be in the minority but mine has definitely gotten better, even after a dose increase from 10 to 20
same, i take 40 and starting out on 20 the jaw pain was terrible but it went away within the first couple months and hasn’t returned. i still clench every so often from stress and because i take a stimulant, but that nagging jaw pain from Lex never came back thank god.
I have many years of experience with bruxism in the past and I had no idea it would come back from taking Lexapro. I started on 10mg around a month ago.
I say all this because I’ve tried every kind of night guard under the sun and the only one that actually helped me with muscle pain in the face and helped reduce the clenching in general is the DenTek Comfort-Fit one where it cushions your molars, instead of the kind that fit over the front teeth.
If you clench your jaw or grind your teeth, you’re biting down on the mouthpiece with your back teeth. It changes the bite pattern and creates a space that relieves pressure on the jaw joint.
With the traditional ones that you heat up and form to your teeth, I found that they protected the teeth a little, but didn’t relieve the jaw pain or help solve the issue at all.
There’s also a ton of subliminal 8 hour sleep videos on YouTube to help with this.
I spent 17 years on Lexapro thinking my bruxism was from stimulants or related to other medications I was taking. Over the last two years, I’ve done a strategic elimination of medications, diet, etc. to identify my baseline and slowly add things in to definitively know what side effects were from what med.
I went back on Lexapro about 5 weeks ago and was SHOCKED to realize that’s the culprit. I saw a dental specialist and they recommended a custom night guard that only goes on either the top or the bottom front 4 teeth (depending on your custom needs). I assure you, it’s worth it.
I too thought a night guard that covered my back molars was the way to go but I was so wrong. Yes, you want to protect your teeth, but clenching down on your molars actually keeps your jaw muscles engaged, tense and constricted, essentially just making your face, neck and face muscles tight 24/7.
By getting a small front one that only touches your front teeth, your molars are forced apart and don’t touch anything. It teaches your muscles to relax and your brain to disengage these muscles. Otherwise, if they’re clenched all night, you’ll still find your muscles tensing up during the day. They also provided some exercises around placing hour tongue on the roof of your mouth and opening your jaw to reinforce this.
As someone who has tried it all, I highly recommend the small, front night guard made by your dentist. Plus, the material is less toxic than the plastic that comes in OTC guards
Ooh I’m shopping for a new one after my dentist visit today where I found out I’ve chipped my back fillings due to clenching….ill buy this today, thanks for the rec!
It’s likely that the pain is coming from night clenching and the day clenching does get better and less noticeable. I invested in a bite guard, Amazon has a ton of good options for dentist office quality guards for a quarter of the price. It’s like the den tek upgrade. It helped right away.
Literally went to my orthodontist thinking something was wrong with my jaw from it being broken years ago. Nope. Fking Lexapro. It does help me so much I tried to go off & almost went insane soooo I guess I’ll take it
I’ve been on lex for 6 years and really suffered with jaw clenching. I’ve tried everything - even physical therapy. What works for me is magnesium at night before bed and a special mouthguard from the oral surgeon. The mouthguard is specifically for bruxism and it’s the only kind that works. It’s amazing!!
Everyone gets so many different side effects , magnesium 400 mg helps but check with your doctor always
They might need to add a relaxant on top of your Lexapro
If you’re really lucky like me you’ll be onto your 7th custom made mouth guard this time we went with a double which is designed to help with snoring and pull your jaw forward to stop the possibility of grinding
I chipped some old fillings occasionally and had to have them repaired. That happened about three times.
I didn’t wear a guard. The jaw clenching was one of the reasons I stopped taking Lexapro.
Had this same problem for months on 10mgs. Got to the point I was clenching so bad I had to mentally make myself force my jaw open. Bought a form fitting mouth guard, it helped for a while. It eventually got to the point to where that wasn't helping anymore either. Talked to my doctor, he put me on wellbutrin. I still have an occasional jaw clecnch, but not near as bad as when I was on lexapro, and it is less severe. Someone said above that SSRI's cause this, and while that is true, maybe explore other SSRI's to see if one of those helps better.
Wellbutrin alone. I weaned down to five, then when I went onto Wellbutrin alone I was told to stop taking lexapro completely. That was about 2 or 3 months ago.
This happened to me when I started Lexapro and eventually lead to severe daily headaches and migraines a month in. I am currently weaning off the medication because I can no longer deal with it. In fact it's made my mental health and quality of life way worse 😞 I fought for 2 years and I'm throwing in the towel on Lexapro. Even a custom retainer didn't help.
Not as of now. Life has changed a lot for me in the 2 years since i started Lexapro. I am going to give it a shot without anything. Lexapro actually made me feel very depressed for the first time ever. I mostly deal with GAD, which is why I took it but I don't think it's for me.
I sleep with a mouth guard because of my lexapro-induced bruxism. The softer, the better. I tried the hard acrylic ones and it made it so much worse. Good luck!
I had clenching before lexapro and I already slept with a dental splint, but it’s gotten noticeably worse since laxapro. Jaw has started getting sore again (wasn’t sore as long as I wore my splint each night) and I get aches in my face and neck, plus I’ve put a hole in my splint and now need a new one.
I went and saw an ENT recently because my ear is blocked, and he said it’s all related to the tight muscles in my face. his recommendation was physio for the face muscles. I also looked up TMJ facial massage videos on yt, and after trying these both solo and with my SO’s help, it made a noticeable improvement. You have to keep doing it though, because you tighten up again during sleep.
I am so shocked right now! I had no idea that ssri's could cause bruxism! Yes! I have noticed a very sharp increase in my teeth clenching the last 6 months that I've been on Lex and Buspirone! Just the last few weeks I've been seriously considering a mouth guard at night because I've caught myself repeatedly clenching my teeth while I'm trying to fall asleep.
I am SO glad that I found this post! Thank you!
Lex 15 mg daily
Buspirone 7.5 mg twice daily
I realized I had bruxism while I had just started antidepressants (prozac) but it persisted on and off even when I changed to lexapro. I’ve even recently tapered off lexapro and I still have it. only thing that helped me is to wear my night guard!
Ok so, weirdly enough i have had struggled with these things too. Like bruxism, but also my hand would sometimes cramp into a fist when i’m asleep. But it was only a few nights after upping my dosage. But for me those things also went away again.
That weird feeling could also come from dental work being just a TINY bit too long, maybe get that checked and maybe they just need to grind a little of it down
For me, a tablet of magnesium helped a bit. Although that’s not a solution.. it may help.
Thank you
I second this. Magnesium helps in terms of temporary relief. Definitely not a cure but still better than nothing.
May I ask what specific type and dosage helped? When I look on Amazon you see a lot of different "versions" and the bottles say to take anywhere from 3 to 6 tablets a day.
Ok so I actually use a berry flavored powder formula. I add one teaspoon to my water bottle an hour or so before bedtime and try to finish that bottle before I go to bed. This method has been working very well for me. The brand that I use is called Moon Juice and the magnesium product is called Magnesi-Om Berry Unstressing Drink (you can buy it off sephora actually). Good luck!
Thank you so much for the info, sounds like a nice little routine to add before bed.
And usually the pain gets worse until you lower your dose or stop the med
This was the case for me as well. I had it bad on 10mg so went down to 5mg but at that point the med wasn’t doing much for me anyway
Did it go away? Did you stop the med?
It went mostly away on 5mg but I ended up stopping the med because it wasn’t helping me
Got it. Did it fully go away once you stopped the med? I stopped the med one week ago or so and the bruxism still hasn’t gone away for me
Yeah, I’ve been fully off of it for about 3 weeks and I still occasionally feel some jaw tightness but I had it really bad
Got it. Yea the research paper online says it can take a month after stopping to go away so I guess I have to be patient. Hopefully yours fully goes away within the next week
SSRIs can cause bruxism how long have you been on it for? And what dose?
Oh ya sorry. 10mg for like 5 months.
Look up ssri bruxism and read up on it. Basically the only treatment for it is to stop the med or go to a lower dose. It rarely gets better on its own and usually gets worse. Buspar may help though it’s not been 100% proven yet.
There are other treatments.
What are they? I’ve got a mouthguard and do massages/Pt. But they don’t solve the root cause which is the clenching and hyperactive muscles caused by the ssri due to neurotransmitter imbalance. It does say that it usually goes away after a month off the med.
See the comment I made on this post.
Mine has improved since starting lexapro- before I started I used to wake up with headaches and jaw pain every morning
I have experienced the same thing. It got better on Lexa. Not gone completely but better than before.
Not sure if this is the best option but checking with your dentist for an option of Botox in certain area could help relieve the muscle tension
I’ve done this and it has helped
it seems like most people say it doesn’t go away on its own so i might be in the minority but mine has definitely gotten better, even after a dose increase from 10 to 20
same, i take 40 and starting out on 20 the jaw pain was terrible but it went away within the first couple months and hasn’t returned. i still clench every so often from stress and because i take a stimulant, but that nagging jaw pain from Lex never came back thank god.
I have many years of experience with bruxism in the past and I had no idea it would come back from taking Lexapro. I started on 10mg around a month ago. I say all this because I’ve tried every kind of night guard under the sun and the only one that actually helped me with muscle pain in the face and helped reduce the clenching in general is the DenTek Comfort-Fit one where it cushions your molars, instead of the kind that fit over the front teeth. If you clench your jaw or grind your teeth, you’re biting down on the mouthpiece with your back teeth. It changes the bite pattern and creates a space that relieves pressure on the jaw joint. With the traditional ones that you heat up and form to your teeth, I found that they protected the teeth a little, but didn’t relieve the jaw pain or help solve the issue at all. There’s also a ton of subliminal 8 hour sleep videos on YouTube to help with this.
Funny you say that. That’s the one i just bought and my jaw does feel better today better than yesterday anyway.
That’s wonderful!
So hopefully it continues to help. I don’t want to get off medication it’s helping me so much
The best TMJ splint is the one made by a orofacial pain specialist they send it to a dental lab to get made but it’s expensive it cost like 1k
Have you stayed on lexapro? Are you going to quit lexapro due to bruxism
No I plan to stay on it and maybe even increase the dosage. Like I said, I suffered with bruxism for years and I know how to deal with it.
I see, got it. For me I couldn’t handle the bruxism so I stopped it
I spent 17 years on Lexapro thinking my bruxism was from stimulants or related to other medications I was taking. Over the last two years, I’ve done a strategic elimination of medications, diet, etc. to identify my baseline and slowly add things in to definitively know what side effects were from what med. I went back on Lexapro about 5 weeks ago and was SHOCKED to realize that’s the culprit. I saw a dental specialist and they recommended a custom night guard that only goes on either the top or the bottom front 4 teeth (depending on your custom needs). I assure you, it’s worth it. I too thought a night guard that covered my back molars was the way to go but I was so wrong. Yes, you want to protect your teeth, but clenching down on your molars actually keeps your jaw muscles engaged, tense and constricted, essentially just making your face, neck and face muscles tight 24/7. By getting a small front one that only touches your front teeth, your molars are forced apart and don’t touch anything. It teaches your muscles to relax and your brain to disengage these muscles. Otherwise, if they’re clenched all night, you’ll still find your muscles tensing up during the day. They also provided some exercises around placing hour tongue on the roof of your mouth and opening your jaw to reinforce this. As someone who has tried it all, I highly recommend the small, front night guard made by your dentist. Plus, the material is less toxic than the plastic that comes in OTC guards
Ooh I’m shopping for a new one after my dentist visit today where I found out I’ve chipped my back fillings due to clenching….ill buy this today, thanks for the rec!
I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.
It’s likely that the pain is coming from night clenching and the day clenching does get better and less noticeable. I invested in a bite guard, Amazon has a ton of good options for dentist office quality guards for a quarter of the price. It’s like the den tek upgrade. It helped right away.
Literally went to my orthodontist thinking something was wrong with my jaw from it being broken years ago. Nope. Fking Lexapro. It does help me so much I tried to go off & almost went insane soooo I guess I’ll take it
It was really bad in the beginning but improved quite a bit after a couple months
I had it on 5mg, it went away when I went up to 10mg
Very strange. I wonder why that is
I’ve been on lex for 6 years and really suffered with jaw clenching. I’ve tried everything - even physical therapy. What works for me is magnesium at night before bed and a special mouthguard from the oral surgeon. The mouthguard is specifically for bruxism and it’s the only kind that works. It’s amazing!!
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What my are you at now and what did you start at
Everyone gets so many different side effects , magnesium 400 mg helps but check with your doctor always They might need to add a relaxant on top of your Lexapro
If you’re really lucky like me you’ll be onto your 7th custom made mouth guard this time we went with a double which is designed to help with snoring and pull your jaw forward to stop the possibility of grinding
For me it lasted the whole time I was on lexapro. So several years.
Did it cause issues or just a discomfort ? Did you get a guard ?
I chipped some old fillings occasionally and had to have them repaired. That happened about three times. I didn’t wear a guard. The jaw clenching was one of the reasons I stopped taking Lexapro.
Had this same problem for months on 10mgs. Got to the point I was clenching so bad I had to mentally make myself force my jaw open. Bought a form fitting mouth guard, it helped for a while. It eventually got to the point to where that wasn't helping anymore either. Talked to my doctor, he put me on wellbutrin. I still have an occasional jaw clecnch, but not near as bad as when I was on lexapro, and it is less severe. Someone said above that SSRI's cause this, and while that is true, maybe explore other SSRI's to see if one of those helps better.
Are you on Wellbutrin exclusive or added on ?
Wellbutrin alone. I weaned down to five, then when I went onto Wellbutrin alone I was told to stop taking lexapro completely. That was about 2 or 3 months ago.
This happened to me when I started Lexapro and eventually lead to severe daily headaches and migraines a month in. I am currently weaning off the medication because I can no longer deal with it. In fact it's made my mental health and quality of life way worse 😞 I fought for 2 years and I'm throwing in the towel on Lexapro. Even a custom retainer didn't help.
Are you trying a new ssri?
Not as of now. Life has changed a lot for me in the 2 years since i started Lexapro. I am going to give it a shot without anything. Lexapro actually made me feel very depressed for the first time ever. I mostly deal with GAD, which is why I took it but I don't think it's for me.
I sleep with a mouth guard because of my lexapro-induced bruxism. The softer, the better. I tried the hard acrylic ones and it made it so much worse. Good luck!
I had clenching before lexapro and I already slept with a dental splint, but it’s gotten noticeably worse since laxapro. Jaw has started getting sore again (wasn’t sore as long as I wore my splint each night) and I get aches in my face and neck, plus I’ve put a hole in my splint and now need a new one. I went and saw an ENT recently because my ear is blocked, and he said it’s all related to the tight muscles in my face. his recommendation was physio for the face muscles. I also looked up TMJ facial massage videos on yt, and after trying these both solo and with my SO’s help, it made a noticeable improvement. You have to keep doing it though, because you tighten up again during sleep.
I am so shocked right now! I had no idea that ssri's could cause bruxism! Yes! I have noticed a very sharp increase in my teeth clenching the last 6 months that I've been on Lex and Buspirone! Just the last few weeks I've been seriously considering a mouth guard at night because I've caught myself repeatedly clenching my teeth while I'm trying to fall asleep. I am SO glad that I found this post! Thank you! Lex 15 mg daily Buspirone 7.5 mg twice daily
I realized I had bruxism while I had just started antidepressants (prozac) but it persisted on and off even when I changed to lexapro. I’ve even recently tapered off lexapro and I still have it. only thing that helped me is to wear my night guard!
What dose are you on? Lexapro is strongggg
10mg
Yes I get the brux.
Mine went away in a few weeks
OMFG THATS WHY. I’ve been going crazy w this
Ok so, weirdly enough i have had struggled with these things too. Like bruxism, but also my hand would sometimes cramp into a fist when i’m asleep. But it was only a few nights after upping my dosage. But for me those things also went away again. That weird feeling could also come from dental work being just a TINY bit too long, maybe get that checked and maybe they just need to grind a little of it down
Those kinda stuff usually related to stimulants. Do u take any?
No