I Have TMJ

Yes I have TMJ, and no I can never remember what it stands for and yes I know almost every other woman on the face of the earth has it.

I have had it severely since I was 15 years old. I got a migraine one day and it didn't go away for 10 years. Back then, when we pointed out to the dentist that my jaw popped he said, yep it does.. don't chew so much gum. So I gave up gum. I have had 2 pieces of gum since I was 15 and believe me both of those pieces were better than.....

When the onset of the migraines, my parents had me tested, blood sugar yes I am hyperglycemic, eeg (is that the brain one?) all those little pinny things poking me.. nothing wrong there.. well I am nuts.. but that wasn't causing the migraine. So I dealt, had a pretty normal life, played sports, dated, sang in choirs, all of those things that normal people did, I just did it with a migraine.

In my late teens I was told that complete restructive jaw surgery would stop the popping in my jaw and the pain there. Now my family doesn't quite go for that, so that never happened.. and of course still no correlation between the jaw and the migraine.

At 25, I went to a dentist, who pointed out that my jaw popped.. well duh.. but he had a friend... and that man.. gave me a plastic mouth piece.. the next day.. my migraine was gone and my jaw had stopped popping!! WOW!! what can I say, this was a miracle, we went through 6 more months of treating the symptoms, one can not cure the problem and I was set..

Over the years I lost my mouth piece and never replaced it, the Migraines came back but never stayed so I didn't put it down to that and the popping never did. But I started having constant tenseness in my shoulders, bordering on pain. I dealt, it is what I do.. Yesterday I was in Wal Mart and bought one of those night guards.. fitted it to my teeth and jaw and guess what? yep the tenseness is gone.

I do hope if this happens again, I do not wait another 10 years to fix the obvious