Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Mysterious jaw pain.

So yesterday I began to notice a mild throbbing pain in my jaw, right where it connects to my ear. I figured I just slept on it funny or Dalin accidentally hit me in the night (Still a likely explanation.)

It hasn't gotten better with time, in fact it has gotten worse. As you probably know, I am something of a hypochondriac and any mysterious ailment sends me into fits of stress caused by nightmares of sterile plastic furniture and men in white wielding sharp things. So these are the things that I think may be causing the discomfort. If I need a reality check, please let me know, but as far as I can see these circumstances seem likely.

1. TMJ. I think I remember my mom talking about this, which may mean I could have it too. According to google, TMJ is a condition that is characterized by painful popping of the jaw when talking/eating ect. My jaw has always popped every so often but it never really hurt until recently. 

2. Wisdom Teeth. When I got my braces off they did an x-ray and said they could see my wisdom teeth getting ready to come up. I seriously don't want to go to the oral surgeon. *Shudder* and I pray to anything that will listen that I will be a special case and that I will not have to get them pulled. But anyway, I read that wisdom teeth can cause this same kind of pain, but I don't think it would account for the popping.

3. Actually I can only think of those two possibilities.

 

It's weird though because the pain seems to deviate sometimes, sometimes it hurts more in my neck and sometimes it feels like a headache in the back of my head. That makes me think maybe I got bumped in the night but...I don't know. I think I would remember if I had been bumped hard enough to cause this much pain.

 

Please, if you know what's going on, let me know.

1 comment:

  1. I think you may be clenching/grinding your teeth in your sleep. (I clench my jaw when I'm nervous/anxious and it gives me the kind of pain/popping you describe)

    Get a "night guard" from CVS, Walmart, Walgreens and wear it at night for a couple weeks and see what happens. If it continues to get worse, get to the dentist girlie.

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