I've been diagnosed with arthritis.....in my JAW!!!!

all joking aside (and believe me my work colleagues are none too sensitive) it's extremely annoying and depressing.

it even aches if I get into any long-winded conversations, that I cannot avoid due to the nature of my work role.

I am restricted in what I can eat as I cannot open my mouth very wide at all, so no more biting into apples etc, and no more crusty bread, no more toffee, nothing that needs any serious chewing....so, you guessed it, I'm craving big thick sarnies made with crusty whole grain bread.....AAAARGH

the consultant seems to think that if I can maintain a limited-chew diet, avoid using that side of my mouth (yeah right) keep on with my night-time muscle relaxants, and day-time pain killers.....it may sort itself out within 9 months.....

sometimes I could sit and cry.

at least my pain killers are kicking in this morning, hope nobody wants any sensible conversation in the next couple of hours....

Only upside I can think of is it would help me loose weight, but I bet your thin as a pin.  Keep your pecker up as they say.

ah but I have figured which chocolate bars I can get in my mouth ;)

and am sick of soup already......

and it doesn't stop me having the odd glass of wine, I just have to be sensible with the pain killers.

ho hum - these things are sent to try us eh :)

Ah well, hopefully it will not be long before those crusty baguettes are on the menu again.

I have it too - caused by wisdom teeth coming in badly and knocking it out of alignment.  They were eventually removed but left much too long during which time my jaw dislocated a couple of times and would often lock into place which really was agony and VERY frightening.

On the upside it hasn't actually bothered me much for years - extremes of temperature whether too hot and sunny or cold and damp seem to cause a flare up and obviously anything really chewy to eat could cause discomfort (toffee/caramels for example) but TBH when the flare up you're having now calms down a bit then if you're anything like me it will soon be something you dont even think about :)

HTH, Teri

well this cold weather certainly doesn't help!

It flared up badly in December, when I could barely open my mouth at all, and has been a problem since :(

not sure what's caused it, initial diagnosis was temporomandibular joint pain/closed lock syndrome...but since the x-rays the consultant refers to it as arthritis, and I think it is due to excessive jaw-clenching, which I know I do when I'm stressed, so am trying so hard not to do it now....(easier said than done sometimes)

have already replaced toffes with fudge, much easier on the jaw ;)

just hope it settles down soon, it'sthe thought of being like this indefinitely that I find quite depressing...

Hopefully it will start to ease off soon - the tissue and muscles around the joint are probably quite inflamed at the moment which makes it worse and I found that sometimes it felt as though my entire face, head and neck was poundng and it was almost impossible to pin point the source of the pain :(

Please don't get too down - it honestly will improve and spells between flare ups grow further and further apart until you forget that you have it :)   I eat pretty much anything, including (uncut) apples and rolls/sandwiches more suited to the gob on a navvy LOL - you'll get there too!  It's been literally donkeys years since my jaw actually "locked" but I still get rare bouts of pain which are easily managed with anti-inflammatories for a day or so :)

I found that during winter it was good to hold a warmed tea-towel against the side of my face yet for some reason heat in summer months works against arthritis ..... strange but true! 

Chin up kiddo, summer's coming!
Teri

Ah thanks, that does make me feel better :)

it doesn;t help that it's Monday morning and I have been alone in the office until 12, so am rather fed up....but one job at a time eh....

and yes - roll on Summer!!!

> have already replaced toffes with fudge, much easier on the jaw ;-)

Excellent choice madam :-P

Chewing on one side isn't all that hard - and the more you do it, the more habitual it becomes.

Years ago I broke a tooth on a polo - half the thing came out, broke right down to the nerve.  Extremely painful whatever I ate on that side, so it very quickly became second nature to chew on the other side - and even now I often still do it, some 9 1/2 years after the tooth was removed!

I had a major jaw op about 10 years ago where I had my jaw wired up up for 6 weeks, so can sympathise!!! It tooks months for my muscles in my jaw to be anywhere near normal. And then when they were, I had another problem, where my jaw would lock intermitantly and it would be hard to chew. I ended up having an arthrosentisis(jaw joint washed out and a steroid injection put in under anasthetic (I was still under my oral surgeon at the time) and he said what I had was more common in young people and I should grow out of it. The arthrosentisis worked a bit, but 8 years on, I have no problems with my jaw at all.
So all might not be lost!!!
And because or venners I cant eat apples that arnt cut up, or anything hard unless it is on my back teeth, and even now Toffe hurts my jaw :(
DFid you see an oral consultant???
Lea :)

It was the oral surgery consultant at the hospital that I saw

very nice man, and I think I made his job a bit easier as I had been doing some research on the internet myself, so had already identified my jaw-clenching as an issue, and was already self-medicating to a degree with ibuprofen etc...

I just hope he's right when he says it will probably ease off by itself - when it's painful it's hard to imagine that

but it's great knowin I'm not the only one, and there is light at the end of the tunnel :)