The TMJ Association - changing the face of TMJ

TMJ Resources - Our Family - Patient Talk

Dawn

Four years ago I was a happy, full of life, full of energy person who loved to laugh. I was involved in sports (played for my college volleyball team) I loved to dance, skate and play piano. Now I suffer from chronic TMJ or at least that is what everyone tells me. I started having neck pain about four years ago and thought it was job related (sitting at a computer all day and turning my neck side to side) so I started seeing a chiropractor who would crack and manipulate my neck to ease the strain. I went for about six months and finally gave up when the pain was continually getting worse. I thought well maybe if I just see a physiotherapist (on my sisters advise) they will know what to do and everything will be ok. I went twice a week for about another four months (hoping, praying.. but nothing). The pain was getting unbearable. I started throwing tantrums, screaming and crying I couldn't sit, stand, lie down, nothing. Nothing would help but to cry and then hopefully fall asleep.

Everyone would ask where does it hurt, what hurts? And I would say my neck, my neck hurts and it will not stop. Someone then suggested well maybe you should see a dentist maybe there is an infection of some sort draining from my wisdom teeth into my neck?? Who knows right, so I went and seen this dentist who decides to pull my wisdom teeth out because they are impacted and just maybe that might be it. Sure enough I went for surgery and pulled them out and sure enough I realized nope, that wasn't it either. Completely frustrated I went to my family doctor, but I went in with a letter to show her all of the steps I had taken and that nothing was helping. I still have pain that at times incapacitates me. So she sent me for an MRI scan to see if there was anything abnormal but it came back clean. Well after that she didn't have any enthusiasm to treat me so I was brushed aside as one of "those" people…you know those people who go to the doctor for a sliver or something. I was so upset. I felt that nobody believed that it and me was all in my head. Some people would say... you know maybe you are just stressed. I felt like screaming "I AM NOT A STRESS BALL"!! I am not crazy this is not in my head. My neck hurts, I have headaches and I have no idea why and neither does anyone else. Full of discouragement I started seeing a massage therapist for a couple of months who did relieve some of the pain, but eventually I would go back to square one. So I went back to my dentist and sat in his chair and cried and cried and pleaded for him to help me. He then referred me to an orthodontist who I still am working with today. But I have gone through four splints in two years. Not the same but different ones. (A day one, a bottom one, a top one and a night splint that holds my jaw open all night, etc.) According to him I have TMJ they took all the x-rays and showed the joint deteriorated etc... but still nothing has helped.

I then started seeing a MD who was practicing orthopedic massage. I was so excited, he was so fully qualified and he took one look and said, you can be fixed. Well the feelings where overwhelming, I had more energy that day then I have had for over three years. I had seen him for about five months twice a week.... and you guessed it, nothing. Some relief but no solution. I now have nowhere to turn I have seen a new family doctor who has been on 13 pills a day. I have spent over $3,000. I am 23-year-old female who cannot even function anymore. I am also diagnosed with depression and I feel like saying, "no shit Sherlock", you would have it too! I find myself very angry that we live in a society that can fly to the moon and drive around, yet all I have is TMJ and no one can help me. Another thing is that it seems that when you say you have TMJ people say to you "oh yah my jaw clicks to! I have that". So it isn't taken very seriously. Everyone and their dog have TMJ, and I understand there are mild to severe cases. It just makes it hard when you are a severe case and the people around you, the professionals that you turn to for help, well they think you are nuts or looking for attention. I don't know what I am going to do next, sometimes I feel like not going on anymore, I am always tired, I can't play sports anymore I have loss interest in most things or at least anything that requires energy and I am sad and cry more often then ever. But then sometimes I think if there was a support group I could go to or even start and maybe just maybe there are others out there like me who feel the same and need me just as much as I need them then I might not let this TMJ disease win I don't want to let some over-opinionated, high-horsed, disorganized, ignorant medical professional tell me I am crazy. I know I am not. Well now that is the short story!!! What I am asking maybe someone that you have heard from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Someone I can relate to over here. Anything, or any advise on how to start a support group. Is there one here? How do I find one etc...all of those questions? And maybe what your take is on my situation.

Dawn - Calgary, Alberta Canada