My Month in Hell

Well, that was fun...

I'm slowly emerging from the fog that was the past month of pain and suffering. 

Early in December, I started having just small and nagging pains in the right side of my jaw.  Nothing serious.  Not for a while at least.  Then slowly it changed and became more severe.  I had trouble spending time with friends and family, because after a night of having fun and smiling I would go home with the worst-pain-in-my-life forming under my right jaw.  Now, I'm an avid WebMD user, and I spent some time looking up things on it (always a bad idea).  That's when I came across TMJ (or TMD).  Basically, it's a disorder where the cartilage that seperates you jaw and skull becomes lessened and those bones begin to rub against each other, causing pain.

Could I have TMJ? Well, all the signs on WebMD surely pointed that way.  So, I went to my dentist.  A couple of full facial X-rays later confirmed it.  I got set up with a specialist dealing with TMJ, but it was going to take a month to get me in.

Fast forward a week...

The pain got worse...alot worse.  It took over my life.  I tried to deal with it.  I would put hot/cold packs on the side of my face.  That seemed to help.  I got so desperate that I would drink any booze in the house just to go to sleep, and when that wore off I would rub Ben-Gay on my jaw.  I tried everything, and the pain just came back....just kept getting worse.  I just reached a point where I couldn't take it anymore.  So, I went back to my dentist to bribe her to get me into the TMJ specialist sooner.

She reexamined me, and finally found the root of my problem.  It was my upper wisdom tooth on my right side.  It was a perfectly normal looking tooth with just one small area of decay on the top.  Nothing serious.  But, it had decided to get infected in the root.  So, I was put on some harder pain meds, and antibiotics.  The pain lessened, and almost went away in my jaw.  Then, it got worse.  Worse than it had ever been.

I went back to my dentist.  She put me on some super antibiotics last Thursday, and got me an appointment with an oral surgeon on Monday.  This past monday.  The pain never really went away.  It got better, but my dentist was kind enough that, over the weekend, she would meet me at her office late at night and give me shots to numb it so I could sleep.  

Monday morning I went to the oral surgeon, and he knocked me out.  He pulled all of my wisdom teeth, and sent me home.  I spent 2 days in a fog of pain and healing.

The result?

So far so good.  I haven't had anymore pain in my jaw like I had.  My lymph nodes and all that is fighting what's left of my infection, and I'm still taking anitbiotics.  I feel a hell of a lot better than I have in a month.

It was just so wierd to basically have a tooth ache that would come and go for days at a time....that's what threw me off.

Well, tonight I did something I haven't done in about a month.  I turned on my Xbox 360.  Being in pain like that removed me from wanting to do any of the things I loved.  I fired up something simple to start off with....a little Guitar Hero 2, so far so good.  Then, I put in Guitar Hero 3.  It took me a while to get back up to the level I was playing at.  Slowly, but surely I got close.  My next goal will be getting back up on my first person shooters.

It's good to be feeling better, and doing the things I love again.