Introduction

Hi
I've decided to keep a blog to record my journey through dealing with temporal-mandibular joint dysfunction. I hope to to keep a kind of diary of how the day has been, challenges I have come across and how I've dealt with them, new symptoms and recipes suitable for anyone who has reduced jaw mobility and strength.

Firstly, a little bit of history about how my TMJ story began.
My jaw has clicked on and off for as long as I can remember. It became a bit of a family joke when someone heard a loud click and asked "was that your wrist?" and I would laugh and say it was my jaw, it just does that sometimes. Very rarely did it cause any pain and when it did, the pain was minimal and passed very quickly.

The first time any significant happened was in 2001, when my jaw locked open for about an hour after going on The Big One at Blackpool Pleasure beach (too much screaming and laughing!). It was a bit sore and certainly uncomfortable but I just laughed it off and once my joint had relaxed again, in went back into a normal position with no lasting pain.
Skip forward about 8 years and my jaw locked again. This time it was a closed lock and lasted about a month! I had anti-inflammatory pills from the doctor which seemed to eventually do the trick and I carried on as normal afterwards, thinking it was just a thing that might happen occasionally but nothing I needed to worry about.

Then towards the end of October 2015, my jaw started clicking pretty much all the time and the pain wasn't settling down like it normally did. At first I told myself "It'll settle itself down in an hour or so". Then it was by the next morning and then in a few days but it wasn't letting up and I also noticed a feeling of pressure under my right eye and in my right ear. I went to the doctor to get checked out for a sinus or ear infection and mentioned my jaw was also sore. Ad there was nothing wrong with either my eras or sinuses I brought it up with my dentist at my 6 month review. She examined me and said the disc in my jaw joint wasn't moving smoothly with the bone and then "clicked" into place when it got to a certain point. She suggested resting the jaw a bit but doing a few simple exercises she showed me. We also discussed trying a night guard to see if that would help. I said I'd try the exercises first as I didn't like the idea of a lump of plastic in my mouth!
Within 3 months of this new bout of issues, the clicking had stopped but I couldn't open my mouth very easily. We tried a night guard which made the pain worse so I was referred to the Maxillo-facial & Oral Surgery department at the local hospital.

I'll continue the backstory in the next post (as it's already quite long!) and finish up with today's diary entry.

Today started out with me being very tired after another bad night. Not being able to sleep comfortably on either side is taking it's toll. After breakfast and my morning meds I tried to get a bit more sleep and managed about an hour. It gave me just enough energy to finally clean the fridge out while I made some tomato soup my lunch tomorrow (today's lunch was reheated carrot and coriander soup followed with some cherries and strawberries chopped very small with youghurt and agave nectar). I even managed to make dinner for the rest of the family and something different for myself with help from my son. I need help getting things from lower down cupboards as bending down makes me really dizzy. Making dinner took the remainder of my energy for the day and my dizziness was back to full capacity meaning that just turning round a corner in the house has the room spinning! I'm trying out a kind of crab walk when the dizziness is really bad. If nothing else, it's quite amusing watching me walk around sideways! After watching The Mountain Between Us with my daughter ( a great film which I recommend) I had a bath as my hair is a mess and now I'm about to read a chapter of my book before settling down for another marathon session of changing sleeping positions and shuffling pillows around before I eventually get comfortable enough and tired enough to fall asleep for a few hours.

Thank you to anybody reading this - if you are also suffering with TMJD, or have a loved one who is, I hope my little blog will help you. If you have any questions at any time I'll do my best to answer although I am not an expert by any means - I just know how it affects me and some of things that have helped a little.
Take care
😊