My TMJ Disorder

Here at the Dental School there is an Oral Health Research Center where many oral health studies are conducted. It is a popular thing for dental students and their wives to participate in these studies because most of them pay pretty well, lots of $$$. Some of them include: not brushing your teeth for a set amount of days, some require you to wear a mouth guard for a few hours at a time, some require you to use a certain toothpaste or mouth rinse and so on, you get the idea. You come to the study, do what they have you do, they pay you $$ it's that simple. A while back I decided to call the Research Center to participate in a study (which didn't pay that well) but I hear once you do one study they call you back for more and you're bound to do one that pays you lots, so I gave it a shot. Well I'm not allowed to talk about the study in detail although I can say a few things about it. It was to be spread out over a year and I only had to come in every three months, not too bad. All the appointments have gone pretty well and usually last an hour or less. At the beginning of this month I went to my regular three month check up and all went well until the end. I have to open my mouth wide for a treatment on my back lower molars and the person doing the study has a device that has to suction down on my tooth and the only way they can get it to do that is by applying pressure on my tooth and jaw. Well as she was doing this my jaw started to shake and feel weak and then it popped open and locked. I screamed and the she stopped and I forcefully popped my jaw back into place. Sounds painful right?! It actually wasn't too bad it mostly scared me. They felt bad about forcing my jaw open and kept asking me questions... "does it hurt?" "how bad" etc. To be honest it just ached a little but nothing terrible. The Dr. came in and asked a few questions and then they finished the study and sent me on my way with my cash. The next week or so I had massive pain in my jaw which mainly felt like my muscles that were tight, most likely because got strained when it locked open. I didn't think much of it until it wouldn't go away. I had limited motion in my jaw on my left side, pain in my face, head and neck and I couldn't bite normally on my back teeth. I then knew some thing was seriously wrong! Unfortunately we do not have insurance, we are generally healthy people and we are in the process of getting on some through the state. So that worried me a little. I called the research center and told the Study Director the whole story and to my relief they are going to pay for the medical costs to help me fix this TMJ Disorder. At first, and still some times now, I want to be mad at the research center because they caused it but not purposely so I really can't be mad at them and they have been so nice and cooperative with the whole thing so I can't be too upset with them, but it still sucks!

Yesterday I went to the TMJ Specialist (I think he is an Oral-Maxillofacial Surgeon or that is his title any way) and I knew what ever was wrong with my jaw was bad but I didn't know how or what was wrong with me. Come to find out I have a slipped disk in my left TMJ or also known as Internal Joint Derangement. What happened is after my joint was damaged by locking open the disk slowly slid in front of the joint, which, if you wanted to know, is very painful! The disk serves as a cushion and a shock absorber for your joint so that the two bones do not rub together, well mine is pushed in front of the Mandible, obviously out of place. So I have no cushion between the two bones, ouch!

Here is a nice visual for you of how it is supposed to look. Now picture my "pink disc" pushing the mandible forward and resting in front.

The treatment is not surgery, well yet any way and hopefully NOT! They will first try a three step splint to hold my jaw a certain way so that the disk will slip back in on it's own. That will take weeks to months who knows?! If that fails or if there is too much damage to the disk and joint then they look at surgery with the splint treatment but that is not very common to have to do surgery so lets pray that the other therapy works and there wasn't too much damage!

Any way the only reason I post this is because that is really the only exciting thing going on in my life right now, sad I know :) You never realize how much your jaw being out of place effects the rest of your body. It amazes me how the body works that way. I have back pain because of it, my throat hurts because of it, my ear hurts because of it, headaches, I can't use my tongue very well, and well I could go on and on. I'm not complaining just pointing out that such a simple problem can cause so much grief to one persons body. Okay I'm kind of complaining because it SUCKS! I can't wait to get this fixed and be all back to normal. The positive thing to this is it's a quick way to lose weight/inches because I can't eat very much at all, it just hurts too bad. I have noticed my cloths fitting looser, kind of nice. If you want to lose some weight just have some one punch you in the jaw and get a displaced disc, or you can try not eating that might be easier and less painful :) I'm totally kidding. I've been meaning to get in shape for bathing suit season and try to lose my mom pooch, problem solved. I guess it's a blessing in disguise, right.

So the Dr. put me on a muscle relaxer called Skelaxin and C said he and his classmates learned about this drug in one of their classes and they would joke about how "you will be Skelaxin (sounds like relax'in) on this drug" and I totally am Skelaxin on this drug it is niiiice! I feel like my muscles are all jello-y it's weird but it helps!
Okay I'm done, thanks for letting me vent it feels good.