when i was 12 years old a dentist had put braces on my lower jaw only ( she had extracted 2 teeth for it: premolars) and had pushed it back by atleast 1 1/2 inches and my lower and upper teeth would not touch. till the age of 20, almost, i had the lower teeth relapsing and my anterior teeth were still malaligned i e my lower teeth was not straight and was inclined towards insides. at the age of 20 i went to an orthodontist and he suggested me to get braces to get properly aligned teeth. For the purpose he brought out my upper teeth forward by 4 mm and then he applied braces on my lower teeth and pushed it back a little so that the gap created by my extracted teeth from earlier braces treatment could be cured and the gap between my upper teeth and lower had increased upto 5 mm. and now i have suddenly started having tmj pains. the doctor says that i am having this pain due to my predisposition to tmj as i had had malaligned teeth since long. i want to know if the current orthodontic treatment is causing my tmj pain or is it because of the earlier one . moreover i even want to know if i should continue with the braces as in should i wait till the time my orthodontist aligns my teeth?i think i have the habbit of clenching as initially i would think that this helps in stopping the relapse that had been happening and now its more of a habbit