Banned From Blowjobs

I'm about to tell a tale of woe. Some of y'all who know me may have heard it before. If so, you have my permission to tune out right now.

It's the TMJ story.

TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint. It refers to the jaw joint. Since it's the most complicated joint in the body, attached to the second-strongest muscle in the body (I don't know what the top one is...maybe the anal sphincter? I know a lot of people who must have really strong ones, in order to contain those large crustaceans they have shoved up there.)

Anyway, being complicated and necessary for Things That Are Important To Humans, like "eating," it's also easy for things to go wrong with the TMJ. This used to be called TMJ Syndrome, but now it's an actual Disease.

If you really want to know about it, read about it in Wikipedia.

What's this got to do with me? Here's the short version:

I was diagnosed as a teenager with TMJD. Part of my treatment was surgery to remove the little disc that is inside the TMJ, and replace it with an artificial disc that was made of proplast and coated with Teflon©.

Yep, Teflon©

You know what happens to your Teflon©-coated cookware when you scrape it with a metal spatula? How it flakes off? That happened inside my jaw joint.

This was a Bad Thing. So in 1991, the disc was recalled by the FDA and the company that manufactured it--Vitek--went bankrupt.

At the time I was uninsured, and the asshole doctor* who did the original surgery, told me I was "fine." Oh, and he also told me I wasn't hearing those grinding noises in my jaw. If he'd stayed in the examination room longer, I'm sure he also would have told I wasn't having headaches, ringing ears, dizziness, sore teeth, and a lot of pain--but that last part's speculation.

*Fuck you, Dr. Gary Lindemoen.

So when I had another surgeon take the disc out, they also found...let me quote this from the pathology report directly:

"4 irregular pieces of red-grey rubbery tissue measuring 2.7 x 2.5 x 1.0 cm in aggregate with the largest piece measuring 2.6 x 1.2 x 1.0 cm."

In other words, a big gob of tumor, along with the totally ruptured and ripped artificial disc. Under a microscope, they found:

"intense foreign body granuloma reaction [containing] refractile foreign material. Scattered chronic inflammatory cells" were also present.

In other words, little tiny bits of teflon that my body was building a tumor around so they wouldn't do more damage.

The first time I read that, I puked. They took that crap out of my jaw. Ew.

Anyhow, I got physical therapy, got my teeth equillibrated (several times), got a night guard, learned biofeedback, and got better.

Go, me!

The only thing I had really noticed the last ten years in regard to my jaw "handicap" was that I can't open my mouth very far. Hence, the title of this piece.

However, recently and suddenly...like, about 6 weeks ago my headaches came back and I can hear noise in that joint again. Even though there's not anything left in there to make noise.

So I've been to the doctor, I had another MRI, and now I'm waiting for results. Meanwhile they put me on a prednisone derivative and I'm bouncing off the walls. Argh.

I'm guessing I'll be going back to the oral surgeon, who will once again give me pain management advice.

There aren't many alternatives here.

Maybe now's a good time to get addicted to Vicodin.