The Body is So Connected – Treat Every Part Well
It seems like it was just yesterday, but we’re nearing 20 years. I was a 16-year-old high school sophomore and I wanted to go get a movie for my mom and I to watch from Blockbuster. It was only about 8 p.m. and the place where we actually rented movies (on VHS) was just a 10-minute drive from our home.
Only about three minutes and two stoplights away from home, I called my mom screaming and crying. I was the second car in line at the red light. Within a fraction of a second I looked into my rearview mirror to see glaring lights traveling at a high rate of speed.
Boom!
He hit me and sent me into the bumper of the car in front of me. I remember hitting my head on the steering wheel and bouncing back to my headrest. I blinked a few times and then reached for my phone.
The driver in front of me - I can remember her voice, but I can’t see her face anymore. She jumped out of her car so angrily and ready to chew me out. And then she saw that I was a trembling teenager, on the phone crying to my mother. I simply pointed to the man behind me, slumped over his steering wheel. She quickly began to console me and then turn her attention to the man who had just caused damage to both of our cars.
Someone must have called the police, because it wasn’t me. One officer pulled up to the scene moments later – perhaps at the exact time I found myself sinking into my mother’s arms. I was terrified. I was in tears - Just months into year 16 and my brand new Silver Pontiac Sunfire was damaged.
The drunken man finally emerged from his vehicle. I can’t even remember the make or the model, but I’ll never forget his face. He was a Black man with a bald head, wearing glasses, shorts and a white v-neck shirt. He appeared to be between 48 and 52 years of age. He tripped onto the median, rocked and wobbled throughout the conversation with the officer.
“Sir, have you been drinking?” The officer asked him this at least a half dozen times.
He made several nonsensical sounds, answering the question without offering words. At some point the ambulance arrived and the paramedics asked me to come with them. For the first time in my life, I leaned into the open back doors of an ambulance. I’m sure that I had a concussion. My heart was racing and my vision wasn’t quite the 20/20 that it was a day prior. But I refused to ride off in that ambulance. I just wanted to go home.
“Sir, can you drive home?” These are the words I’ll never forget. I still don’t understand how a Dallas police officer could let a visibly drunk man drive off into the night, perhaps to harm more people. But he did just that. My mom secured his name and insurance information, but after months of failed attempts to recover money for the damages – we simply moved on. My car was fixed a week after the accident and we both just prayed that the assailant wasn’t taking to the Dallas streets drunk anymore.
Two years later, as a high school senior nearing graduation – I began to have headaches. I chalked it up to stress and tension about my future life in college. By the time I settled into my dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin, headaches were part of my everyday life. My immediate remedy was simply to smell like peppermint oil every single day, after smearing it on both my temples and the nape of my neck.
One day, as I walked the campus I yawned and I heard something much louder than the music blaring in my headphones. My jaw popped. I remember looking around to see if anyone else heard it. That Christmas Break, I returned home to Dallas and my mom took me to Monarch Dentistry.
They immediately diagnosed me with TMJ (a dislocation of the temporomandibular joint) and told me that I was grinding my teeth at night. They didn’t take a single x-ray, but instead made clay moldings of my mouth and insisted that the expensive mouthpiece they made for me would stop me from grinding my teeth at night. I did as I was told. They even made sure to tell me that lockjaw could be part of my future if I didn’t wear the device, something I would fear for the next decade.
My headaches didn’t cease and the clicking noise in my jaw became more frequent. I returned to Monarch the following summer and they made another device for me to wear during the day. Unfortunately the device made me, a 19-year-old college student very self-conscious about talking to people. But again, wanting to get over the issue – I did as I was instructed. In trying to disguise the device, I subconsciously began speaking with a lisp, which was pointed out to me in the most embarrassing fashion by a “friend,” in front of several other college students.
Throughout the remainder of my college years, I became dependent on a device to sleep. I couldn’t stand wearing the device during the day. So I suffered with headaches and eyestrain during the day, as long as I could get decent sleep at night.
I graduated from college at the age of 22. In all of my pictures, you’ll find a big smile and perfect teeth. My first job out of college was in a tucked away cubicle on the marketing floor, so I began to wear my mouthpiece again until people would walk by my area with a question. I would sneak it out before turning my head around.
Over time and after several more mouthpieces made by different specialists – the devices began to push my top teeth forward, creating an overbite. The devices also created a huge space between my top and my bottom teeth. Every doctor, every dentist, every specialist told me something different. My mood began to change. I found myself angry and lashing out at those closest to me. Not only was I in physical pain, but also the amount of money my mom and I were spending could fund the college experience of another student.
Shortly after my 30th birthday, I visited another Monarch for a simple teeth cleaning. The dentist asked me to open my mouth for her to begin the exam, and I could only open it comfortably about the size of a pointer finger. She inquired. Not wanting to go into great detail about my story, I forced my jaw open causing the loudest crack ever. It scared her almost to tears, forcing me to share my story with her. I never had issues with my wisdom teeth, but for some reason this woman thought that removing them might help with the tightness of my jaw. I allowed her to perform the procedure a few days later. Two days after that, I found myself on vacation in Belize with a dry socket and a mouth to sore to wear a mouthpiece. I’m not sure how much the phone call added to my T-Mobile bill that month, but I called that woman and used my most colorful words to express my displeasure.
When I returned to the states, Monarch called me in. The dentist wanted to do x-rays that would reveal something to me that would be life changing.
“You have a broken jaw,” she told me. “Of all the doctors and dentists you’ve been to, no one has ever taken x-rays of your jaw?”
No one had ever even suggested it. That drunk driver hit me when I was 16 and there I was 30 years old, hearing a medical professional tell me that my jaw was broken. I was numb.
“You probably never had TMJ,” she admitted. “Your jaw forced your teeth into a bad position and people just assumed you were grinding your teeth – as a result of all of these devices and treatments, you now have TMJ.”
I felt forsaken by so many people. I felt disregarded. I was not only humiliated, but I was disgusted. When I asked her what I should do, the woman simply grabbed my shoulder and said to me that it may be time to consider surgery.
I went home that afternoon and began searching jaw surgery on the Internet. Not only would it be a procedure in excess of $25,000 that my insurance as a teacher would not cover, but it was not guaranteed to work. On the brink of a real depression, I began to medicate other ways.
At some point that year, a routine eye exam revealed that I had extreme pressure behind my eyes. The optometrist sent me to an ophthalmologist who diagnosed me pseudo tumor cerebri. These people made me think that I was going blind. In fact, I found myself sitting in a waiting room once per week with people who were legally blind. I had to take a 500mg Diamox pill every single day to reduce the swelling behind my eyes. My migraines were now part of everyday life. I was irritable. The ophthalmologist referred me to a neurologist. I had brain scans and multiple MRIs. The neurologist told me that there was something causing my headaches and that she would need to send a wire through my pelvis up to my head in order to see the problem.
If I’m being honest, I put my foot down and my middle finger up to the situation for over a year. My jaw got worse. My head felt heavy. I cried almost everyday. The last mouthpiece I had was beginning to deteriorate. I decided to go with one more doctor. Upon our first meeting, he offered two options: another mouthpiece for $3,000 up front or to cut me right next to my ear and insert a metal implant between the dislocated joint. I gave this man $3,000 to create a mouthpiece that looked like a piece of chewed gum on the inside and a running-back’s mouthpiece on the outer side.
Once again, I was devastated.
For one year now, I have been under the care of Dr. Cory Nguyen, DDS at Beyond Dental: Dental Implant Center. The relationship began with the development of yet another mouthpiece, however, for the first time in my experience with mouthpieces – I was placed on a tensing machine to relax the muscles in my jaw. Instead of having a device that simply fit on my teeth – I was provided with a device that forces my bite to be in the correct place.
Dr. Nguyen met me at a time in my life when I was no longer pleasant about my condition. I arrived to his office hesitant about devices and not at all trusting of doctors. I wanted to just go under the knife and get a new jaw if that was a thing. Dr. Nguyen doesn’t believe in surgery on the jaw.
“Any doctor who would perform such a surgery is just playing a guessing game,” he says. “Sure, you can pick the jaw up and put it in the right place, but if you don’t train the muscles to cooperate – you’ll be in worse shape.”
He explained to me that rectifying my condition would be a full body approach. He taught me the importance of breathing, holding my mouth in the right position and even the importance of sleeping on my side, as opposed to my back.
Monday, I allowed Dr. Nguyen to perform a tongue-tie release surgery and a frenectomy on me, essentially clipping the frenum under my tongue and the connective tissue from my lip to my gums. These procedures are known to clear the airway, which is the most valuable system in the human body. Did the procedure hurt? No, I was too numb to feel what was going on at the time. The hours after, prior to my pain medications kicking in were indeed difficult, but so far I have to say it was all very much worth it.
Almost immediately, the pain that has long lived in the back of my skull and my shoulders vanished. My chest feels clear and no longer congested. After taking a good nap on Monday, I actually slept the entire night without a mouthpiece for the first time in over a decade. The tension behind my eyes, which has caused me to have embarrassing bloodshot colored eyes in the past, is gone. I don’t have a headache. I finally feel like I don’t have to battle for control of my mouth.
What I appreciate most about Dr. Nguyen and the great people at Beyond Dental is their desire to educate, as opposed to just proceeding with invasive surgeries. We’ve spent entire sessions watching videos on how the tongue should rest on the top palette of the mouth when not talking. There have been appointments that simply consisted of me resting on a tensing machine to relax my jaw for an hour.
This journey has been incredibly difficult. This journey has also been expensive, costing my mom and I at least $30,000 in treatment, injections, mouthpieces, etc. A close family friend had jaw surgery a handful of years ago. She hasn’t been able to go outside when it’s cold ever since.
Even though I’ve made significant progress, I’m not quite done. Once all of my symptoms disappear, the plan is to affix braces over my corrected bite. This will involve the cutting of my mouthpiece and the braces/bands are to keep my bite in the right position. I’ll be 36 years old in March with braces, but more importantly I will be 20 years post accident. Twenty years after a drunk driver caused me to hit my head on the steering wheel, I finally have some of my pain subsiding.
I’m still nervous about getting too excited, but the last 24 hours have shown me a world of possibility.
