IT SEEMS LIKE A MALADY THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY ACCOUNT FOR MULTIPLE SYMPTOMS ELSEWHERE
THE TEMPORAL MANDIBULAR JOINT DISORDER ODYSSEY - EVEN A PAIN IN THE ASS
ONE SPRING EVENING, I WENT OVER TO MY PARENTS APARTMENT, IN BRACEBRIDGE, JUST FOR A SOCIAL VISIT. I DIDN'T HAVE CABLE AND I LIKED THE NEWHART SHOW, SO I MADE MY SOCIAL OCCASIONS COINCIDE WITH THE SHOW. NICE GUY EH? I REMEMBER SITTING ON THE COUCH, ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE SITCOM, AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, GETTING THIS WEIRD FEELING, LIKE I WAS IN A TUNNEL LOOKING OUT. IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO EXPLAIN, BUT MAYBE "USING BINOCULARS," IS A BETTER DESCRIPTION. WHAT I DIDN'T REALIZE, AT THAT MOMENT, WAS THAT MY TMJ (JAW DISORDER) WAS PARTICULARLY IRRITATED DURING THAT WORK WEEK AT THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE, AND ON MY MOTHER'S COUCH, I WAS PUTTING MY HEAD BACK AGAINST THE CUSHION…..A DEFINITE "NO-NO" FOR THOSE WHO HAVE A JAW PROBLEM. WHAT THE JAW DOES, SEEMS TO INSPIRE THE NECK INTO A MUSCLE SPASM, WHICH IS THE LITTLE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING.
WITH WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO MY VISION, WHICH WAS MORE A FEELING, OR PERCEPTION OF A PROBLEM THAN AN ACTUALITY (I WASN'T VISION IMPAIRED - IT JUST SEEMED THAT WAY FOR A MOMENT). BY PUSHING AGAINST THE TENSION IN MY NECK, I WAS CREATING A SENSATION OF LIGHT HEADEDNESS, WHICH I CAN RE-CREATE ANY TIME TODAY, SEEING AS MY NECK IS ROUTINELY STIFF. THAT PARTICULAR NIGHT, I SUFFERED MY FIRST FULL FLEDGED PANIC ATTACK, AS A RESULT OF BUDDING TMJ. I WAS SCARED TO DEATH. I'D HAD SOME PANIC MOMENTS, WHICH IN THE NEWS BUSINESS WAS NORMAL FARE, ESPECIALLY AT DEADLINE, BUT THIS ONE WAS OUT OF THE BLUE. I HAD KNOW IDEA WHAT CAUSED IT, AND IT WOULD BE YEARS, A MARRIAGE AND OUR FIRST CHILD, BEFORE I FIGURED IT OUT. I CAN REMEMBER THIS OCCASION AS IF IT HAPPENED THIS MORNING. HAVE YOU HAD SIMILAR PANIC ATTACKS? WHEN MERLE ASKED ME WHAT WAS WRONG, I TOLD HER I HAD A TOOTHACHE INSTEAD. I REALLY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO ME…..BUT IT WASN'T PLEASANT.
THE PROBLEM FOR ME, WAS THAT I WAS ALSO DRINKING HEAVY AS A WRITER / EDITOR, AND TO GET PAST THE DIFFICULT MOMENTS OF THIS UNKNOWN AFFLICTION, I DRANK MORE…..AND AT TIMES THE PROBLEM SEEM TO DECREASE. IT WAS DEFINITELY A MIND OVER MATTER SITUATION, AND IN ESSENCE STILL IS, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. I CAN MAKE IT WORSE BY GETTING MAD AT A NEIGHBOR, WHO INSISTS ON CUTTING MY LAWN AND FERN COVER. I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS. THE DRINK DULLED IT FOR QUITE A WHILE, EXCEPT WHEN I SOBERED UP. THE FIRST STEP THROUGH THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE DOOR, I COULD FEEL THE TIGHTENING OF THE MUSCLES IN MY NECK. I WOULD START CLENCHING MY JAW, AND GRINDING MY TEETH BEFORE THE FIRST MEETING OF THE DAY. ONE OF THE SIDE EFFECTS, THAT REALLY BOTHERED ME, WAS MY PENCHANT FOR CONFRONTATION. IMAGINE HAVING A BAD HEADACHE, LIKE A MIGRAINE, WITH ALL THOSE RELATED SYMPTOMS, BUT…….MINUS THE PAIN. I WAS LEFT WITH THE IRRITABILITY. HEADACHES WERE A SMALL PART OF THE TMJ EXPERIENCE FOR ME. BUT WHAT YOU WOULD EXPERIENCE AS A MOOD, BECAUSE OF A HEADACHE, I GOT IN SPADES. SO THE FIRST JERK AROUND THE CORNER OF MY OFFICE, MAKING SOME RIDICULOUS DEMAND ON MY TIME, IN A JAM-PACKED DAY'S AGENDA, GOT ME FLYING OFF THE PROVERBIAL HANDLE. ANGER WAS THE MAJOR DEBILITATING ISSUE IN THOSE EARLY TMJ DAYS, LEARNING HOW TO COPE WITH WHATEVER CHANGES WERE OCCURRING IN THAT DAMAGED PART OF MY BODY. MY EMPLOYERS WERE STARTING TO WONDER IF THEIR EDITOR WAS LOSING IT. SO WAS I. SO WERE THE YOUNG LADIES I USED TO KEEP COMPANY WITH BACK THEN, BECAUSE I COULD TURN NASTY FAST, AND DRIVE THEM HOME ABOUT FIVE MINUTES AFTER OUR DATE BEGAN. BUT I DID START SUSPECTING IT WAS THE BOOZE MORE THAN ANYTHING, CONTRIBUTING TO THE LONG TERM NASTIES…..AS IF I WAS IN SOME SORT OF PERPETUAL HANGOVER.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE PREPARED TO SUFFER TO GET BETTER
TMJ is a master of disguise, for many other things going on in the body. I'm not a medically trained writer, just a sufferer, who has had TMJ as an unpleasant mistress for many decades, and it very nearly ruined my career, my marriage, and my life. The fact that it can make the whole human experience a daily misery, if you have the affliction…….you need to research it as far as you can, to see if anything you might be suffering from, ties into other known TMJ spinoff situations. I've had this explained to me many times, how the muscle spasms, and natural splinting work, on the jaw, as it would if you broke your arm……the swelling in the locale stopping the damaged area from movement. I've had chiropractors show me how, by pressing certain areas of my jaw, through my mouth; actually affecting the strength of my legs. By golly, I couldn't believe how TMJ in full bloom, could fan out into so many distant areas of the body…..to make spin-off back issues turn into a walking dysfunction. It's one of those conditions that doesn't confine itself to the creation of a jaw-ache, a headache or irritated ear drums. You may have these symptoms arise in one hour, working in dastardly harmony, to make it a whole life-experience. The confluence of TMJ spin-off is the real a-hole of the damaged jaw condial. You get hit with multiple symptoms, and if you don't know about TMJ, and it never comes up in a medical examination, you are going to be in for a lot of disappointments, trying to get a proper diagnosis. This is what…..excuse the pun, makes us nuts……because so many times, you don't get the answer that would at the very least, give you a starting point to deal with the condition…….that by the way, doesn't get better, unless you are willing to take a chance on surgery to correct the condial…..which because of its small size, and heavy-use demand, offers a less than certain outcome. Answers. That's what we need. Tell us we're not losing our marbles, and that TMJ can explain a lot of the sensations we're experiencing.
The first significant reality of the TMJ lifestyle, is to appreciate fully, that anxiety makes it worse. Always! There are no exceptions! Which is a drag by the way, if you are in anxious situations the result of employment or there are worries on the home front. Worrying about a nasty boss is bad, but having to deal with a divorce or sickness in the family, will put a sufferer into orbit. There is no shortcut to mitigating the ongoing irritation, unless you are prepared to make some serious changes, in order to deal with life's unpredictable qualities and quantities.
My first serious reckoning with this work related impact on my jaw, came one day when I was making myself a coffee at The Herald-Gazette. It was early in the day, and to that point no one had thrown me a curve, or set out a hoop to jump through. Just the usual obstacles. Like story suggestions we didn't need or want. One of my overseers yelled from down the hall, "Ted…..I'm glad you're here……I have a bone to pick with you." Even today, if somebody mistakenly says that to me, I will let them know I don't respond to bone analogies.
As he approached in the hall, with a determined step, I began to tighten up as if rigor mortice was setting in somewhat prematurely. My jaw was clenched like a bear trap, my heart was pounding in my mouth, and there was already a throbbing pain shooting up my neck, to the skull that might have blown apart at any moment. He had a ridiculous complaint about a story we had run in the paper that morning, and wanted to bend my ear with his misinformed conviction we had got the whole thing wrong. Truth was, he was wrong. This happened a lot. But the collateral damage was already done. Having my arms folded across my chest, I held on to the spirit within, that wanted to give him a thrashing for starting my day off badly. You know, without his knowing it, he made me suffer by immersion, and from this I learned, there was no way I could continue working in the office day to day. He may have saved me from having a heart attack on the job, or hurting someone else. It heralded the decision to advance my freelance relationship with the newspaper and its sister publications. Although I changed papers a couple of times, I never went back to in-house editorial work. I even looked after two kids as Mr. Mom, without a hitch. I enjoyed that job.
Suzanne saw a big difference in me, the moment I was appointed feature editor, and got to work on The Muskoka Sun, with Bob Boyer. Bob was demanding but I never minded the work load for either publication. I just didn't like the baloney part. Bob was a straight shooter, and as long as I filled the white spaces of the publication, with readable copy, all things were good and equal. Previously, I would come home from work, at lunch, and instead of talking to my wife, I would mow the lawn. Or shovel the snow off my lawn. I'd do this three or four times a week, because I found that physical work took my mind off my editorial responsibilities. Exercise and meditation are great for TMJ. But the lawn suffered its own collateral damage from TMJ.
Over the years, I found ways of clenching without grinding my teeth. I could actually stiffen my face in a sort-of clench, without my jaw being closed. I seemed to be a beggar for punishment. Suzanne one day, after a particularly bad couple of days, opened my desk drawer, and showed me five or so Bic pens I'd use for handwriting my editorial copy. "Look at these Ted……look at the ends…..see what you've done to each one of them," she lectured. "You've bitten the ends off each one of them," she said, while holding them close so I could get a good look. Let me put it this way. Visible on four out of the five, was the ink cartridge, protruding beyond the broken-off plastic covering. They were like that because my teeth weren't sharp enough to gnaw through the thicker, heavier type of plastic. I was shocked to see this. I knew I was crunching them, but I never really studied what my jaw had been destroying, while I was pondering my next paragraph. "I can't imagine that you've done your jaw any good, eating these pens," she added. There was the smoking gun I guess you could say. They were my teeth marks. But why the hell was I doing this? I shouldn't have worked so long in front-line news. I might have spared my jaw somewhat, by going freelance years earlier.
There are TMJ sufferers who are fearful about their futures. I understand their concerns. I had a lot of sorting-out to do myself. I chose to listen to people with good advice, and I removed certain aspects of stress that were beating me down. I have always been a happy and prolific writer, but there was a period with the newspaper, that I truly hated entering that office door each morning. It was time to stop the damage. Bit by bit I made life changing improvements, and although it wasn't enough to stop-up TMJ symptoms, it was my beginning-over that's for sure. The damage to the condial couldn't be undone. Day to day irritation could be mitigated. I was pleased with even small reductions in the headaches and neck stiffness. It required a lifetime commitment however, and getting mad meant increased suffering.
Tomorrow, I will let you know how, after all these years, I've learned to manage TMJ and enjoy life. Thanks for joining me today. Please visit again soon.
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