Wooooo Saaaaa
I have a world class headache that’s promising to build to a migraine. As it turns out, the “Mutant Tooth” that the dentist thought he found on my X-Rays was actually a root that wasn’t extracted when I got my wisdom teeth removed, oh, 13 years ago. I was having incredible pain in the right side of my jaw, and was convinced that my teeth were trying to reach around to chew my brain out. So I went to the dentist. After scaring the nine hells out of me, he sent me to a maxillofacial surgeon to “figure out” what it actually was, and whether it was causing my pain.
The surgeon was very non-challant about telling me what my problem was. In fact, his smugness was a little irritating. “That’s not your problem. Your problem is how you deal with stress.” I’m sorry, what? The only reason I didn’t walk out was because I’d heard that before, including from the dentist who sent me in the first place. When I questioned him about how stress had anything to do with my teeth planning a mutiny, he stepped behind me and pressed on five different spots on my head, neck and jawline. “Your teeth hurt, your jaw hurts, your neck hurts, and your eyes hurt, don’t they?” ~*Pokeprodpresspressprod*~
Have you ever actually seen color explode into your field of vision? Yeah, I did once. It was when I was in a car accident and my head snapped back so hard that the back of my head actually touched my back, and then hit the dashboard, and then the seat. It was like I was in an old Batman episode! I saw a hue of purple that I’ve not seen since. It wasn’t fun, and I never thought I’d have to experience it again. When the Surgeon pressed those spots I thought I was going to pass out. Colors and black spots flooded my field of vision and the pain shot like electricity along the muscles connected to those spots.
“You have to reduce the stress in your life immediately. You’ve managed to bottle up your stress, emotions, and anxiety to the point where you’re subconsciously working it out at night by clinching your teeth. You’ve clearly been doing this a long time–long enough that you’ve developed a pretty serious case of TMJ. You’re doing damage to your ligaments and muscles, and we have to stop the progression. Have you tried dealing with stress and anxiety differently?” Have I tried?! You can’t be serious. I’ve tried meditation, martial arts, painting, exercise, music, writing, hot baths… I’ve tried pretty much everything!
I don’t know if any of you have TMJ, or know anyone with TMJ, but it hurts. A lot. I know when it started getting serious, too. About 8 years ago I started having recurring dreams of my teeth shattering and falling into my sink like they did on Loony Tunes. And then I woke up one morning and couldn’t open my mouth. Any attempt was incredibly painful, and the effort was absurd for such a simple movement. Chewing was out of the question for a few days. It’s not always that bad, but how often it happens has been increasing over the years.
So I’m taking up yoga. “Yoga for stress reduction,” to be exact. I start next Wednesday night, and I have reservations:
- The class is an hour and a half long. Do you know what I could be getting done in that amount of time?
- I can’t sit still for that long. Physically I can do it, but my concern is that I’m going to get irritated because I can just “be still” mentally. I’m not wired that way. Some people have a mind with one or two tracks going at all times. I have 4 or 5. When I’m not given something to think about, or a problem to solve, traffic on all tracks bottlenecks. When I have that much going on upstairs, and I have to wait to do something I’m thinking about, I start to get anxious.
- I want results. I understand that there is a learning curve and a process, but I need to see progress. If things are going too slowly (and yoga is sloooooowww), I get antsy and, once again, my mind races.
I understand that these are the very things that are contributing to my need for stress reduction in the first place, but how do you recondition someone who has spent 31 years living like this? If yoga doesn’t work, I might have to look in to hypnotists, and I don’t even know if I can be hypnotized! Then again, there’s always the local gun club…
Write well,
Dawn
