Orthopaedic orthodontics - part II

March 26th, 2012 @ 14:20:

We were back to Mr. P. B.'s dental practice for my second consultation. "Any changes, any improvement?" No, not really. Despite feeling the muscles surrounding my right TMJ slightly more relaxed (as it was expected from taking diazepam), I didn't notice any improvement or worsening regarding my pain or jaw function. I stopped taking the amitriptyline completely due to the awful way it affected my mental health (delusions, hearing strange noises and voices in my head), but I followed Mr. P. B.'s instructions on wearing the hard splint.

However, Mr. P. B. was hoping that the splint had produced changes on my bite, and so I was asked to lay on the dental chair to check for these. After a few minutes of torture (open mouth "wide", close mouth, bite hard, tap teeth...), it was confirmed that nothing had changed. But Mr. P. B. had something else in mind - he had prepared a soft paste on a special appliance that hopefully would fit into my mouth to produce a full mould. And so the torture continued... Once my mouth was full of "play dough", I had to bite as hard as I could until the paste was fully solidified. He actually "helped" me on this, by pressuring my lower jaw against my upper teeth. The worse came when the paste became solid - I couldn't move my lower jaw for the paste to be removed. It was as if my whole mouth was cemented, upper and lower teeth glued against each other. I was in great pain and almost in panic. After a lot of effort and with his help, the mould was finally released from my teeth. I had never suffered this much on a dental chair.

Orthopaedic orthodontics - part I

As chiropractics proved to be unsuccessful to reduce my TMJ pain, I followed my second chiropractor's advice, and phoned the dental practice of Mr. P. B. to book a consultation. The receptionist was very kind, and promptly arranged an appointment for the following week. She explained all the procedures done on the first consultation, and just before hanging up the phone she added "By the way, the first consultation will be £240; is that ok?"

Ana - I'm sorry, can you please repeat that?

Receptionist - The first consultation will be two hundred and forty pounds.

Ana - WHAT?

Receptionist, now on a really dry tone - Two hundred and forty.

*awkward silence*

Ana, swallowing the shock - Oh-kay... That was a bit unexpected... Alright then. Err... See you next week.

During February and the first weeks of March, Davide and I had spent almost five hundred pounds (£500) in all my chiropractic treatments and appointments. Taking into account that since Davide submitted his PhD thesis (December 2011) our only monthly income was my scholarship, it was through great effort that that money was spent. Now, for a single appointment I was being asked the whopping sum of two hundred and forty pounds. "Oh boy... You better fix me!"

TMJ in the UK

I graduated in geology in 2006, and soon after I moved away from home to work. For six months I lived in a beautiful village located in the Azores islands, right in the middle of the Atlantic. During this time, Davide and I became good friends. Once our contract was over, we both found jobs in the oil industry, working offshore in rotations of two weeks on/two weeks off. However, a few months later Davide got a scholarship to do a PhD in Cardiff, Wales (UK). From then on, my time-offs where spent there.

In January 2009, I left my family, friends and sunny Portugal to live with the best guy ever, and to fully enjoy the "great" british weather.

During these years I felt my right TMJ slowly deteriorating. I could tolerate the pain, but the discomfort on the joint was becoming more and more intense. Mouth opening was not smooth as I felt like having  sand grains being crushed inside the joint. From time to time, the lower jaw would get locked open. Although I was able to find a technique to put it back in place after the first few times it happened, it was always a really scary and painful experience. The joint noises were a constant torture. They reminded me of chicken leg bones getting broken.

Regarding the pain around the joint, it was usually more intense in the evenings, with all the normal eating, talking and general mouth movement the TMJ had to go through during the day. However, it wasn't uncommon waking up in the morning already feeling pain, or having quite strong headaches. Knowing I used to grind my teeth during the night (bruxism) ever since I was little, I considered the morning headaches quite normal.