About two and a half years ago I started noticing my jaw would make clicking or popping noises sometimes when I chewed things. There was no pain, so I thought nothing of it. A few months after that I began having headaches and neck pain along with the clicking noises when I chewed. And then something strange started happening. If I was chewing something tough like bread or steak, my jaw would lock closed.
One time I was simply sleeping on my side and when I woke up I couldn’t open my mouth for a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity.
Soon after, I decided that these were symptoms of something and I should seek medical attention. After a few different referrals, driving to a dentist, an ears, nose, and throat doctor and then finally to my TMJ Specialist, I was able to start getting some kind of guidance and treatment for the pain and discomfort. The first thing that was done were the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans taken of my head, which allowed my doctor to translate to me that I do in fact have arthritis.
I currently go in every month or so for an evaluation of my TMJ the joint in which I have developed arthritis. There are two of these joints located on either side of the face, near the ears, where the temporal bone and mandible (lower jaw) meet.
The appointments are usually pretty quick. They include filling out a short self-evaluation which rates my pain on a scale from 1-10 and monitors symptoms. Circling “more, less, none, or same” of things like headaches, joint pain, clicking/grinding sounds and jaw locking helps me communicate to my doctor if progress has been made with my jaw. After some questions he asks me to clench my jaw together, relax my jaw as he feels where the joint is, and then wham!, there is a needle in my face being emptied of all of its lidocaine and my cheeks begin to go numb. Ice packs go on each cheek and my future appointment is made.
The lidocaine injections seem to help. Before these injections started I was experiencing terrible, unexpected shooting pains in my entire jaw and mouth a few times a week. During these pains my teeth would feel like each one was being pulled out and my face was in a vice.
Even on a daily basis there is a slight pain that I’ve become numb to because it is so consistent. This pain is the flattening and erosion of my condyles (top of the mandible where joint joins) as they grind against the thinning, shredding soft tissue in between the temporal bone. Or in other words, the pain is from my degenerative bones, arthritis.
Luckily, my doctor uses slow, cautious ways of treatment before jumping in to unsuccessful surgeries and hasty ways of treatment.
The first set of mild treatment had me taking about 12 ibuprophens a day, wearing a thick, plastic mouth guard to prevent clenching, grinding and malalignment, using a topical cream that numbed my face, stopped muscle inflammation and lessened pain, and taking a muscle-relaxing pill before bedtime. But since all of that wasn’t completely doing the trick, phase two of the conservative, cautious treatment are these lidocaine injections.
The thing is, I’m only 22 years old! I used to only hear about arthritis in older people. When in fact, close to 50% of the TMD population has some form of degenerative joint disease or arthritis. According to the NIDCR (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research) some estimates suggest that TMJ disorders affect over 10 million Americans and the conditions appear to be more common in women than men. So apparently, it’s more common than I thought; the degrees of pain and dysfunction just vary.
At any rate, I will continue to go in and receive my next four out of six injections and further treatment until the pain goes away. Or I’ll at least keep a positive attitude about it. If this is happening now I can't wait to see what is in store as I get older.
...
This is the MRI scan of my skull the doctor took to diagnose my jaw. Yes, this is actually me!:
The writer has taken on a serious topic - her illness - and yet did some somewhat dispassionately in most places.
ReplyDeleteIt reads pretty technical, yet understandable.
More understandable, even with small changes, than the earlier version.
The headline was good, but needed to be referenced in the body of the column to make compelete sense.