Jaw update

I had my follow-up appointment with the TMJ doctor last Friday morning. It was originally scheduled for the Friday before that, but I still had medicine left to take and had it rescheduled for last week so that he could evaluate me when I had completed my 2nd round of muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory meds. For the record - it IS getting better, I'm just getting impatient. However, I just need to remind myself of how far I've come since May and June, when it was at its worst...bawling when Kellen would bump my jaw. Right? Right. Keep reminding myself of that. Because I don't like the alternative (I'll explain).

We chatted about how my jaw was doing and I asked him about the popping/clicking when I opened my jaw. I can still open it through the first phase just fine, it's when I push it to open through the second phase that it now pops (when before it wouldn't/couldn't open unless I manually moved the lower portion of my jaw around) and clicks. It doesn't really hurt anymore when it does this (at least most of the time, anyway), it's just incredibly loud and annoying to me. He manipulated it, and had me open and close my jaw a couple of times while he felt what it was doing, commented that "Yes, it was really loud and pretty bad", then told me the good and bad news.

The good news. The clicking is a sign that the soft tissue around the jaw area is relaxing, which means that it's getting better. YEAH!

The bad news. The clicking may not go away for 6 months to a year...maybe even longer. Or he could make it go away very quickly with surgery, but he stated that he didn't think that I really wanted him to go that route. He's absolutely correct!

Now, if he told me that the clicking would never go away without surgery, I would most likely be making a surgery appointment quite soon...but if it will go away and it just requires patience on my part...well, I'm married to Matt...God has instilled some level of patience in me at this point in time...right?

So, the plan is to drop the muscle relaxants from the mix and just take the anti-inflammatory medicine and he wants to see me back in a month.

Sidenote: The doctors office had moved locations since our last visit and I actually drove myself to the doctors office on Friday. All by myself to Houston - and I didn't get lost and only made 3 U-turns (and there were no signs telling me that I couldn't make those U-turns). I was pretty proud of myself and consider that quite an accomplishment!