Why do you want to treat it? Is it causing you pain? Discomfort? Interfering with sleep or speech or swallowing?

TMJ issues and aesthetics

My advice would be to start with one of those cheap "boil and bite" night guards you can order off Amazon. See if sleeping with one of those provides any TMJ relief. You can also look around for a sleep doctor in your area who rents CPAP machines and see if sleeping with one provides relief. Those two options are cheap and reversible. Ortho is expensive, in terms of both time and money, and can have downsides. Root resorption and gum recession are the two that I am stuck with. And I would wager there is just a good a chance the ortho will make your TMJ issues worse. If those two don't get you anywhere, see if you can find a dentist who only deals with TMJ issues. They ought to be able to make you an acrylic splint you can wear 24/7. Once you find some relief, they ought to be able to adjust your bite using equilibration (grinding some teeth down, building others up). I would run, not walk, from any practitioner who utters the words "pull the mandible back". That could set you up for a (shortened) lifetime of obstructive sleep apnea.

OSA is not great. A crossbite can be resolved. Just start at a good orthodontic lab. Take vitamin D whenever moving teeth (ideally get it from the sun!!). Root absorbtion is more likely to impact some than others...but for most it only is impacting in old age. Doing a saggital appliance takes pressure off the teeth and a slow palatal shaping can occur. Typically you’ll see this with a poured mold. Many are not privy to shaving down but if the ortho lab puts the turning equipment a bit away from the palate, you can reshape better by filing down in advance or as you go.

Wait another 10 years and you’ll see some mind-boggling treatments come up. They’re sorting this all out. Help is available, but will even be better than ever.

@jbsims I can’t message you directly for some reason. As a parent who has been on an orthodontic journey through hell...I just had to connect. It was sooooo hard to find this all out.

@asdfasdf I am concerned that the above information was relayed under the assumption that you’re an adult. How old are you?

@jbsims You must have understood me wrong. I don't have any problems with breathing or sleeping, only cracking, popping and pain in the joint.

@darkindigo I'm 19 years old currently

If your TMJ is cracking and popping and painful you may be clenching and/or grinding at night and not know it. A cheap night guard and/or CPAP might help you discover whether you are or not. If you are aggravating the joint during the day an acrylic splint should help. I would find the real problem before ortho.

@asdfasdf Whereabouts do you live? I wish you could send me photos. Dang... um... the site is being worked on. If you can post photos that would be good.

When you say the doc wants to pull your mandible back to sort things out... what do you mean by that? Need photos of tongue. It sounds like you may have a tongue trust? The swallowing pattern sounds like you're pushing things forward when swallowing?? NO HARD FOODS! I would not do gum an hour a day or anything stupid... FYI. Smaller bites. I think what he's saying seems reasonable. Your young enough something can be done. :-)

I don't know much about treating bimaxillary protrusion through orthopedics... except this... the more you exercise the tongue, the bigger it gets. The bigger it gets, the more teeth push out. I wouldn't try to strengthen the tongue, but let it atrophy and to strengthen the lips to push in. Something like... tightening the lips together... and not puffing out air into the lip areas (if this is a habit). It sounds like your teeth are just sitting forward on the jaw. I would likely try to get a thin sports guard... shape it to the teeth and push back on it while keeping chin forward. Pushing back without a muscular counterforce can just push the condyle back... it sounds like your mandible is not long enough and the teeth are more forward on it. Anyway, that's from the description.

Usually the counterpoint in all these bimaxillary prutrusion treatments are some anchorage points drilled into the bone. A reverse headgear may work, but it can also hurt the TMD. I don't know... that's a tricky one. If you want, you can get another opinion, but I would likely go for what he says. It sounds reasonable. If you want other opinions.. here's one... Dr. Bill Dickerson from Las Vegas Institute runs a Facebook group and covers TMD. The real trick is TMD with bimaxillary protrusion. He's kind of a guy that gets the chin forward, but usually does that by moving the maxillary teeth forward. I would ask him how to push back mandible teeth, maybe?? I think that if you got started with this orthodontist, you'll be glad to not wait. At 19, if he can do palatal expansion, I'd jump on it most likely. However, there are future treatments coming out. It just depends. I think if this guy is good, I'd try it.

However... if your tongue is ridiculously big and getting bigger, there may be a health issue underlying this. There is such as thing called acromegalia where the tongue overgrows. Anyway, you may want to compare notes with @dm222 as he has bimaxillary protrusion & probably is a better resource.

However, without the benefit of photos and all that, it sounds more like a tongue thrust swallow pattern. Do you push your tongue forward when you swallow?

@darkindigo I don't have  a tongue thrust. When i bite down all of my teeth touch. I mostly eat meat and dairy. I practice mewing and when swallowing I vacuum my palate and barely touch the upper incisors with the tip of my tongue, although i don't vacuum the teeth inwards. No recessed chin or something like that, so i dont think my mandible is too short. My teeth aren't crooked and I dont have crowding. Its more important to me to get rid of the crossbite, I dont really worry about the bimax protrusion because its pretty minor. For some reason the page didn't let me upload a pic of my bite, but ill try again.