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Saturday, October 18, 2014

Recovery Journey Part 17 - Teeth and Life

You know you have a good dentist when he returns your texts at 12am in the morning, something I was not expecting.  If you have never had tooth related nerve pain then I envy you big time.  If you have you know what I mean when I say you can think of nothing else other than - MAKE THE PAIN STOP.  Well that was my evening last night.

Let me back up a little, if you have been following my recovery you will know that I fell on my head and that once fitted with a collar I experienced a major TMJ flare up.  What you don't know is that two years ago I started on a journey to prevent a major TMJ flare up.  The treatment involved electroshock alignment, braces and a whole lot of memories I am it a hurry to forget.  The upshot was moving my jaw forward by a lot and included crowns on my teeth to create a whole new bite.  Prior to the accident I had ongoing appointments to work on the bite alignment because as you can imagine you just don't get it right the first time, second time, 5th time, need I go on. 

So during the collar days the bite was and jaw joint was enflamed by both collar pressure and bite pressure.  Post collar days the joint and nerves are enflamed by bite pressure points for which the solution so far is to sand down the high points without lowing them.  Lowing them would result is all the teeth needing to be realigned, so a bad thing.

Now forward to the beginning of the week, when I visited the dentist.  We worked on the bite and I left hopeful that we had it nailed.  It takes a least two days to figure out if the bite works so I entered into the teeth cycle.  What am I talking about, well let me share.  In the mornings the teeth feel ok until hit with hot or cold, you know the feeling right.  Then as the day goes on the jaw aches and then culminates in the evening with throbbing pain.  Take pain killers get a few hours sleep and the cycle begins.  As you might have gathered I am an optimist by nature and every morning this week I told myself they are calming down and indeed Thursday night was not that bad.

Back to last night, by 10pm I was bouncing metaphorically off of the walls and after another couple of hours bouncing gave up at 12:34am and texted my dentist, just coz I could.  What followed was a very unexpected text conversation that resulted in an emergency appointment this morning after I manage to get 5 hours sleep with the help of meds.  Today he did a little more grinding, you can imagine how my delicate teeth felt after that.  The good news is more meds and things have settled down, The teeth cycle clock has been reset for another 2 days. 

To take my mind off things and try to get a better nights sleep I picked up a new pillow.  Wow that sounds so mundane but I am sure I am not the only one in the world for whom buying a pillow is a big deal.  Over the years I have taken to even travelling with my pillows as other pillows are either too hard or too soft, yes I know I'm a delicate flower.   So trust me when I tell you it was a big deal and I have my fingers crossed.

Last week I did have some exciting news that I did not share with you as to be quite honest I could not wrap my head around it.  The problems with the engine for our new VW camper have been resolved and the Syncro build is going forward, I even have a schedule.  Today Sarah and I reviewed the 100+ line build sheet and all the choices we still need to make and questions we have.  It definitely took my mind off of things.  The exciting bit is that we might have it ready in December but I am not holding my breath lol.

Well that's it for today, as much as I don't feel like it I have exercises to do and a ride on the trainer to complete.  so I will leave you with the saying that is top of mind for me today - The past has gone, the future is unknown but the now is a gift, that is why it is called "The Present".  I don't recall who's quote this is but I love it - Enjoy the now

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