The TM joint is a kind of hinge that controls the vertical or horizontal movement of your jaws, such as when you attack a 10 foot stump of sugarcane using only your mouth. The only thing that appeared to ring a bell from a whole lifetime ago was the word mandibular, coz of some glands or somehting in the mouth that were called submandibular and sublingual, and something about pre-digestion of carbohydrates, or starch, or whatever thanks to salivary gland enzymes at the time of onset of mastication. There is also another worthwile mention. In this era of increased sexual libertarianism, women are warned, particularly the overzealous type, that a degree of moderation is in order during night time yoga, when the staple of foreplay is exercised; use caution!
Anyway…nuff of that…let’s move to the more interesting part:
DETAIL YOUR 3 MOST PAINFUL EXPERIENCES:
We will exclude childbirth to be fair because it would only apply to roughly half the people. I will detail my three increasing order of grief.
The first cause, is an occurrence that has occurred in full force twice. It is called “otitis externa”, or in layman’s terms, “swimmers ear”. The name is derived from the propensity of swimmers to experience this condition, of course due to the amount of time they spend in the water. Water gets stuck in the ear canal, and may invite a colony of bacteria to your ear canal, and they cause swelling of the canal such that the canal is blocked. Anyone who tried to swim deep has felt the stinging pressure on the ears as you go deeper, due to the pressure imbalances, and you rush quickly to the surface when it becomes unbeaerable, and the problem is solved. Here ther is no “surface” to rush to, but persistent pain and pressure there to stay with you. They have ENT doctors for the simple reason these parts work in unison! I read somewhere the 3 ossicles that constitute the middle ear; the anvil, hammer, and the stirrup; are normally joined to the jaw area bone in embryos, and towards birth they break-off and retreat to form your middle ear, which you are born with. I mentioned the jaw because that’s where it hurt the most! The nerves become so agitated, that even normal closing of the jaw generates intense pain that can make you shout out and eating was nothing short of suicide! The treatment was 10ml of steroid laced ear drops at a whopping $250 or Kshs. 25,000!! This is an industry of conmen!
The second case was extraction of 4 molar teeth. In the US military, disturbances from high pressures within the mouth cavity disrupts the state of readiness quite significantly, so if they evaluate and find you prone to issues there, they will take the 4 molars out at about 22,23 age. If you are like me, I thought I didn’t have ANY molar teeth!! It turns out, that in fact I did have 4 fully developed molars that were growing horizontally hence the pressure!! That is why I had crazy jaw pains about twice per year without knowing why. So they put me under with anesthesia and proceeded to hack off the 4 mandingo teeth. Half way through, in a dreamlike state, I started hearing very loud noises, little did I know that I was about to fully wake up half way through. If they drill out your teeth while you are awake you gill get freaked out!!
My CNS had formidable resistance to tranquilizing drugs, because back then I was a very seriously copious consumer of Hennessy in dangerous amounts, with not an iota of hyperbole. My perfect conditioning saved me then, but it would kill me instantly today if I tried to do anything close to what I did back then. Not rarely, I could literally smack down 750ML of Hennessy in under 3 hours clean! The hangovers used to be massive, and often if I reach home today 6AM, the hangover would wear down 2AM next morning. Procedure was done and I was driven to my house. I thought to myself; it can’t be so bad this tooth extraction process, but I had misjudged the huge craters that were created in all 4 corners, that, after 10 or so minutes, and just like a variable resistor light switch, that anesthesia wore out, and was replaced by pure and raw pain! So intense was the pain, you can’t even yell out in pain, laugh, or even cry much as you felt like it, as it was too painful to do so. I just kept quiet and stared at the ceiling for solace. Eventually, I quickly run through my one week’s strong dosage of Percocet in two days, for a stupor induced weekend that I wished would never end lol. I tried to go and con the dentist to add me more on Monday but he didn’t budge and gave me Ibuprofen for my unshakeable headaches; I cursed under my throat the whole way home!
I assumed that’s as bad as things could possibly get but I was mistaken. The third, and crowned champion of all pains known to me, came 2 years after the molar tooth extraction. One of the holes slightly opened and got infected, with the dental nerve exposed. The inflicted pain was so massive I couldn’t stay put, so I just walked around the house the whole day. You could not let the mouth dry of the exposed dental nerve would mercilessly strike back at you, and I was constantly drooling, so it was a messy day! The strangest part is where the most intense paid occurred; the neck!! There was this electrical shock like pulsation that was coincident with my breathing, and it felt like a very bad case of what you would call a stomach stitch from drinking water during sports, only on the neck with way way sky higher sensory excitation on its surfaces to guarantee you untold misery, and seemingly so in perpetuity.
Those are my 3, what are yours?