The Strange Dance With Your Own Jaw

TMJ IS AN EASY DIAGNOSIS - LIVING WITH IT, NOT SO EASY

LEARNING TO ACCOMMODATE THE DISORDER IS A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW - BUT YOU CAN GET ALONG WITHOUT ANY PILL AT ALL

     I HAVE MET TMJ, (JAW DISORDER) SUFFERERS, WHO COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT A MISSHAPEN CONDIAL IN THEIR JAW HINGE, COULD CAUSE THE VARIED SYMPTOMS THEY WERE EXPERIENCING. THEY UNDERSTOOD THE HEADACHES, DIFFICULTY OPENING THEIR MOUTHS, ON BAD DAYS, AND THE WAX BUILD-UP IN THEIR EARS, AS THE JAW HOT-SPOT IS CLOSE TO THE EAR CANAL. AS FAR AS THE OTHER SYMPTOMS, SUCH AS DEPRESSION, PANIC ATTACKS, TUNNEL VISION (OR BINOCULAR PERSPECTIVE), AND LIGHT HEADEDNESS, THEY WERE DOUBTFUL THAT A JAW DISORDER COULD STRAY THIS FAR FROM HOME…..AT THE HINGE OF THE TINY CONDIAL. THESE CONDITIONS SEEM PRECARIOUSLY CLOSE TO THE SIGNS OF MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT MEDICAL PROBLEMS, LIKE A STROKE, HEART ATTACK, AND HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. SO PUTTING THEM TOGETHER WITH TMJ SEEMS A TAD DANGEROUS. WELL FOLKS, I'M LIVING PROOF THAT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS AND ALL THESE SYMPTOMS, RAGING IN MY BODY, I HAVEN'T SUCCUMBED JUST YET. I THOUGHT THE SAME, IN THE EARLY GOING, AND DID WHAT I BELIEVE WAS THE RESPONSIBLE THING…….HAD THEM ALL CHECKED OUT, TO ELIMINATE POSSIBILITIES. THE SAME AS I WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THEY ARE SUFFERING FROM TMJ LIKE SYMPTOMS. IT HELPS TO RUN A CHECK ON YOUR JAW, AS I EXPLAINED IN A PREVIOUS COLUMN, SO YOU CAN MOVE ON, IF YOUR JAW DOES CLANK AND CLICK. I'M NOT SAYING YOU DON'T HAVE TMJ JUST BECAUSE THERE'S NO FLAT SIDE ON YOUR OVERWORKED CONDIAL, BUT IT IS PRETTY MUCH A STANDARD, BY WHICH IT IS DETERMINED. YOU CAN ALSO CHECK, IN FRONT OF A MIRROR, TO SEE HOW YOUR MOUTH OPENS AND SHUTS. IF IT IS OVER TO ONE SIDE, MORE THAN THE OTHER, IT IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING THAT IDENTIFIES A WEE PROBLEM WITH THE HINGE……AND COULD BE IRRITATING THE NERVES IN THAT AREA OF THE HEAD.

     

TMJ SURVIVOR REACHING OUT

     As I am a lot of things to a lot of people, some good and some bad, my pride and sense of success today, is in part related to my own survival against the beast……the TMJ I was partnered with in my early twenties, that has been my constant companion ever since……I guess you could say we're inseparable. But by the same token, we've learned to get along. I try to cease and desist hurting my jaw with tough meat, and jaw breakers, minimize stress, know how to divert my attention from antagonistic situations to serenity now, and avoid having some person smash me in the face. When I can't stop getting pissed off, and I run into a piece of athletic beef, and I fall into an argument with an adversary, I have a subsequent "standing" agreement with TMJ. I'll take the pain for the crime. All I ask in return, is patience from my affliction, trusting that when I calm down, the symptoms will gradually be reduced. There have been times, you know, when I was almost glad to have TMJ, because it has always made me over-think situations, and circumstances, and frequently it seems to provide fuel to the whole "devil's advocate" thing. I have actually paid attention to what my jaw warns me, is a potentially dangerous situation, and on several occasions, has even stopped me from making an offer on three houses, that if we had purchased them, would (as we know today) have cost us a fortune in repairs. At the time, they looked great. I don't know why this happened, but for all intents and purposes, the clenching set-off alarm bells, even for Suzanne, who was inspired to do a little extra research. We made the right decision by not making offers. Maybe TMJ increases sensory perception. I do know, by experience, that a bad jaw and stiff neck as a result, will give me the craziest dreams in technicolor. When my jaw is fine, the dream is in black and white. The splinting that occurs in this part of the jaw, due to the irritation, I'm presuming, must cause some strangulation of the nerves and blood vessels in the region. I'm not a doctor, so don't take this suggestion as the truth. I've had it so bad, at times, that I've been dreaming while awake. Not good for driving, and I'd hate to hit any of those pink elephants I've witnessed.

     The nasty part of TMJ is if you have this in concert with some other serious malady. The TMJ is always the less serious medically, but a real problem emotionally. Most of the doctors I spoke with, years ago, about TMJ, paid little or no attention to the emotional feelings, that I felt were proportional to the jaw disorder. The more research I did, the more I learned about this confluence of physical and emotional side-effects. There were many other folks, with similar conditions, experiencing almost the same collateral symptoms, from what should only have been, in painful physical terms, the result of misshapen condials. I used up a lot of medical time in those early years, trying to prove my sanity was fine…..but the TMJ experience was crappy. It took years to put it all together, thanks to my researching-obsessed wife, Suzanne, who helped me through a crisis. I had to do the same for her, when she was diagnosed with the same disorder, a few years later. She got it from tending the injured "me."

     I have never taken any medication to reduce the discomfort, and aches and pains associated with TMJ. I'm proud of that. Some would say I'm awfully dumb, not to mitigate these symptoms. I know that if I began taking them regularly, I would become a junkie in short order. I had to stop drinking for the same reason. I wanted to know what my excesses in daily life, were doing to my physical and emotional well being. If I had to have my leg amputated, I would show a lot less hubris, and beg for as much pain relief as possible…..and ten percent more. TMJ demands an honest relationship. I wouldn't know what damage I was causing, if I was taking pain medication. Like the old hockey and football players, who had their leg injuries frozen, so they could finish the games……but were causing additional damage. I want to know what's going on at all times, and I regularly use meditation and sensible proportion to bring me back to an acceptable level of discomfort. Dr. Michael Lynch, of Bracebridge, one of the finest doctors I have ever known, told me to manage my condition, by understanding what aggravates it in the first place, and recognizing that us mortals must contend with pain and discomfort through our lives. Some sooner than later. His advice. Get on with life, and stop dwelling on the problem. And it's true, without doubt, that when I obsess about TMJ, at least once a week, it will aggravate to a level nine out of ten. Just by dwelling on the discomfort. Dr. Lynch put me straight, at a time when I was keen on feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't have got better advice from any one else…….and it has served me in good stead.

     If you have missed the first two blogs on this subject, please archive back to Monday. I know there are folks suffering with these symptoms, unaware they have a serious jaw disorder. In my case, more and more of our friends and work colleagues, were telling my wife in the early going……"Yup it's all in his head." They were right. I just needed to know where in my head. I wasn't suffering a mental breakdown, but admittedly, the symptoms of TMJ were beating me into submission. I couldn't stop worrying about what was wrong, and each second of worry, was complicating TMJ. It was most definitely a vicious circle, where the symptoms were circulating back to where they were being generated…..and there didn't seem to be any way of changing the flow. As soon as I began studying all the details from the journals of fellow sufferers, and took some good medical advice, my world got a lot brighter…..and I learned that there is no better way to live life……than cheerfully, despite conditions that might work the mind, in the opposite direction.

     If you suspect you have a problem yourself, no matter what your age, (as it happens in young people as well), get it checked out, by either a family doctor, a dentist, or a chiropractor. Your choice. But do get it checked. The knowledge of the disorder is considerable, so when you find out you have been dancing with TMJ, then you can learn how to keep from stepping on its feet……if you know what I mean.

     Thanks so much for joining today's blog. Please visit again soon.

NOTE:

     I HAVE INCLUDED A SHORT ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THIS WEEK'S GRAVENHURST BANNER, REGARDING WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, AND THE NAMING OF OUR TOWN IN THE YEAR 1862. THERE WAS A SECTION OF MR. SMITH'S WRITING OMITTED FROM THE COLUMN, THAT I WOULD LIKE TO CORRECT, IN THIS BLOG, AS IT IS IMPORTANT TO THE OVERALL INTEGRITY OF THE STORY.

THE STRANGE MATTER OF A NAME AND A POET

A WRITER WE SHOULD GET TO KNOW

     One hundred and fifty years ago we became linked, as a community, with a British author. The reason? We can only speculate. Was it good for our community?

     This is the question lingering a century and a half later! The historian dealing with actuality, fact and truth, can only answer, "No!" It is accepted as historical reality, but nothing that would warrant particular recognition, let alone celebration for the honor it was supposed to represent.

     "As I pass the meadow, I lean upon the gate that opens into it. I see a little child, almost an infant, toddling alone in the high grass. The tall buttercups have outgrown the child; they and the ox-eyed daisies shut out from its view that neighboring cottage which is home; the child has lost its way amidst the flowers it had come to gather, knows not where to turn in this jungle of soft grass."

     The preceding paragraph was written by British author, William Henry Smith, who wrote about the commonplaces of life, in the book "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil," published in 1862, shortly before Canadian postal authority, William Dawson LeSueur borrowed the title, as a suitable name for the hamlet post office, previously known as McCabe's Landing. LeSueur, also an historian and revered literary critic, rejected the citizens' choice, and instead honored the author, and the subject of the book, by affording this undeclared tribute to our fledgling community.

     I'm willing to bet, you didn't think about William Henry Smith this morning, finishing your corn flakes. I'm pretty sure his name didn't come up at coffee time, or amongst swimmers gathering around the new town pool. In the fall of 1862, after the post office was official opened, with a McCabe as the first postmaster, no one stopped for too long, to contemplate what the name meant. There were a lot more pressing issues, than to try and figure out the complex nature of William Dawson LeSueur. So life went on, and the matter of a name "mattered not!"

     "I hear a plaintive cry of distress. Another child, some two years older, I guess, runs to its aid, caresses, calms it; leads it back to the cottage home of both. How prettily it protects. How proudly! Seeing that this older one can look above the grass."

     Referencing the literary work of William Henry Smith is just not important to contemporary Gravenhurst. We can get along pretty well without referring to his book in most circumstances of each day. It's not as if this long deceased author can improve the local economy, or make municipal politics more palatable to the taxpayer. It might be a fact of history, that we were named after his philosophical tome, about the "commonplaces" of life, but the connection has been deemed, for long and long, unnecessary and irrelevant to our modern existence.

     "You perceive that the little fond and sympathetic, and imitative creature has learnt that tender care from their common mother; you note with a smile the already complex, sentimental (sense of power mingled with love) revealed in that protection; you observe how soon the thread of life, and even where it is silken soft, is spun of pain and pleasure; you know more over, that beneath the thatch of that cottage, to which these children hand in hand are walking, there beats some true and tender mother heart."

     Five minutes after reading this column, the name William Henry Smith will fade like the summer season, and the 150th anniversary that was never celebrated. I don't expect there will ever be a street, road, country lane or drinking fountain named in his honor. How ridiculous it would be, to think that a local restaurant would launch the William Henry Smith, corn beef on rye sandwich, for the benefit of tourists to our town, wishing to know more about our heritage. I doubt very much whether the town would fund a brass plaque, with an inscription, to screw onto the back of an existing park bench, that would acknowledge he ever lived, or that his book gave us our name, which we have used very well ever since.

     Maybe some future council, and an up-and-coming historian, will one day agree on a proper, official way to recognize the literary provenance we have been so generously afforded; but to this point opted to brush upon, only lightly at best.

     If you are interested in reading the book we are named after, you can do so by clicking on "Google Books," and typing in the name and author; "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil," by William Henry Smith.