Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Recovering

For several days now I've been wanting to film a book review for my YouTube Channel. I really enjoy doing YouTube, and I feel like that is being taken away from me. I can hardly talk or eat anymore.
Last Friday, I was blessed with the opportunity to have my wisdom teeth removed. I first noticed discomfort in December of 2006 while I was at Sea World in San Diego with a friend who no longer wishes to have contact with me. I don't know why I remember this so specifically. We were at Shamu Stadium waiting for the show Believe to begin and I was rubbing the back of my gums together so much they bruised. The next time I realized something was happening was in probably February or March of 2007. I was living in Napa and was probably watching a show or something and felt a little baby corner of a tooth peeking through in the back, top, right side of my mouth. Mom called her dentist and I had x-rays done and discovered indeed my wisdom teeth were coming in. At that point they, were no causing me any trouble or pain so for that time we decided to leave them be.
I do not specifically remember when I started experiencing the 'painful' part of this journey. I'll take a wild guess and say 2008. Starting in 2008 I was in consent pain from these teeth poking in and trying to force their way into an already harmonious atmosphere of happy teeth. The most pain was in my lower right side, where the tooth had only semi-penetrated fully. So there was also a gap between the skin and the tooth that got painful. The top right tooth came in all the way and was not a bother though it did come in sideways.. I had almost no problems with my left side, maybe on a scale of 1-10 a 2 or 3.
So finally last Friday I got all four of them taken out. I was told I did not need all four out but I just wanted to get it all over and done with in one appointment. My biggest worry was that I would develop jay problems.
The jaw problems started in 2003 while I was in Maui with the friend mentioned earlier who wishes to not have contact with me anymore (I have her twitter information if someone whats to tell her how not cool that is, because I really miss her). We were snorkeling and while I had the breathing piece in my mouth, I was gripping it pretty hard because afterwards, my jaw was popping into and out of place painlessly. I thought it rather amusing actually. That was the summer before my senior year of high school. I had problems now and then with my jaw popping out of place now and then, but it didn't usually last very long, and was not painful, so I did not think much of it. My mom said the same thing used to happen to her when she was in high school and she grew out of it. The worst time I has was in 2005. My jaw popped out of place for like 3 days and I could open it to eat and I had difficulty talking because my bottom jaw was influenced to slide to the right side. Ever since that experience 7 years ago, my biggest fear is that my jaw will lock up again.
I have not had any problems with it in 7 years. When I went in for the initial consultation for my teeth, I told the surgeon about my jaw problems and he diagnosed me with temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ). He explained what it was, and what happens with TMJ, and it is not something one grows out of. It all made sense, and I expressed my concerns revolving around the surgery. I wasn't nervous for the procedure, but that my TMJ would cause problems. At this point with my surgery done, I'm recovering from it just fine but three days ago I noticed I couldn't open my mouth and it was not due to tenderness from the surgery. I think my TMJ has caused some major swelling and pain in my right side and I have difficulty eating and talking. I went back to the doctor today and he said there is nothing he or I can do, just hear and cold and he gave me a different pain med with an inflammatory for the swelling.
I pray that I can open my mouth again soon. I feel my spirit is more broken than my body right now. I want to film for YouTube, I want to work and talk at my full potential, but I can not. I'm trying to see if God is showing me something, I'm praying about this. But mostly I'm shedding tears quietly when no one is looking, mostly for the pain, partly for the fear that I'll not be able to open my mouth again.


2 comments:

Joy Kerr-Owens said...

I also have TMJ and the same thing happened to me when I had my wisdom teeth out in highschool. My joint was inflamed from being propped open during the surgery and that bothered me more than the extraction itself. But it did calm down eventually (a week, maybe?)... especially with ice and heat.

defying gravity said...

It took me two weeks and 4 days to get myself completely off my medications. At work today I had someone tell me that my face was a different shape than even just a week ago.(I met him right after my surgery and the swelling from my TMJ exaggerated the right side of my face).