Just when I thought the last few weeks of 2008 would turn out to be better than the past few months that I have had it seemed that things were suddenly going the wrong way again.

That sounds pretty dramatic, but with things not being to good health wise the last few months as well as the unexpected death of my horse I had hoped that towards the end of this year it would all look a little brighter. Things aren’t extremely bad, but they aren’t as good as I wanted it to be.

As long as I can remember I have been grinding my teeth in my sleep, and that progressed from grinding teeth while sleeping into clenching down while watching TV, sitting at the computer or driving a car. Unfortunately that isn’t good for your teeth, it causes cavities, irritates your gums and is very very bad for your temporomandibular joint and the muscles in your jaw area.

For me it means that I can’t open my mouth all the way or it will ‘pop’ out of it sockets, which basically means it dislocates. It happens a few times a day and it usually pops back in, it feels pretty uncomfortable but that’s about it.

Last Wednesday I woke up with a horrible toothache, but as one of my wisdom teeth is coming through I figured it was causing the pain in my mouth. I took a few aspirins and went to work. But I didn’t last long, it took me only about 10 minutes before I left again while on the phone to my dentist. Luckily they had a spot for me within the hour and when I arrived I suddenly didn’t feel any pain any more (which generally always happens when you don’t want to get anything done eh!).

The dentist took one look and stated it wasn’t my teeth (no cavities yay!) and it could be the wisdom tooth but, with my history of grinding it was probably something completely different (although the wisdom tooth is involved in the pain somehow).
It turns out I dislocated the right jaw and it didn’t pop back in, it cramped up and that’s what caused the pain (in combination with the wisdom tooth). So I have been walking around with a dislocated jaw for half a day and -apart from the pain- didn’t even notice it!!!!!
In the end it popped back in by itself and things are OK-ish at the moment. The bad news is, that my jaws are completely worn out, it will never get better and chances of dislocating it again are sky high. I now have to keep my mouth shut as much as possible although talking isn’t a problem. But I have to watch out not to open my mouth too far. Cut up bigger chunks into smaller pieces and wear my anti-grinding / clenching braces as much as possible.

So all-in-all it was another exciting week for me but I hope things get better from here on, although  -in all fairness- it’s never boring

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