New Member

I remember a few years ago I started getting -hard of hearing- years of music cranked up in the car I guess. Last Summer I had upper jaw pain, and thought it was trigeminal neuralgia, and could get the pain to quit with a few firmly pressed fingers on my head. In September I went to the dentist for a cavity; he said the tooth had to come out, and how about that other tooth above it? Looked bad too- so I arranged for an oral surgeon to take them both out. I wanted to be under anesthesia because it was all very sad to be losing two teeth for me-I thought I'd researched everything I could about what could go wrong.

Apparently when you're under anesthesia they crank your mouth open wide, and yank back and forth a lot on your jaw bones, and wrench your neck pretty badly. I've been a massage therapist for 27 years, and never had any neck issues before, and boy oh boy did I have one after those extractions. Clicking, soreness, stiffness, pain- I thought okay, I can deal with this. My jaw didn't feel the same though, my bite was off. Then I got the courage to look in my mouth, and saw white plaques-thrush- from the antibiotic they required I use for 10 days. Swished with diluted clove oil for that, worked ok.

An interesting thing happened the day after the surgery- I had to turn the volume DOWN on the media- it was so loud now! I could hear really well again! Pretty cool I thought!

A week later, at 2 in the morning, I woke up to the sound of a circular saw in my left ear. The neighbor had been using one the day before, and like I said, my hearing was more sensitive. After a couple of days, it simmered down to a clear tone, or 2 or 3 clear tones- fairly high pitched, louder than the refrigerator hum (good days), sometimes much louder (bad/most days). The other ear is affected too, but if 10 is the worst, then my left ear is 6 on a good day and 9 on a bad day, and my right stays constant at 4. Within a couple of weeks my hearing was back to muffled too.

Six months of this. I notice some things help, and some things don't make any difference.

All the neck massaging, night after night, doesn't change the T. Jaw massage, jaw muscle massage, head massage- etc- doesn't help. Lymph drainage- which is very light stroking- does help. It seems there is a congestion in my ears, or in front of them, and the lymph (fluid under the skin) massage relieves a bit of that pressure. I have to do it twice a day. Helps the fullness issue. The T remains, but is slightly less loud. Boy am I putting a lot of hope in that-

That other thing though, the thrush- caused by the antibiotic and never really resolved completely; basically my tongue looks whitish and kind of furry feeling- the day after I treat it I have reduction in T. I treat it by oil pulling with coconut oil with 5 drops of clove oil, and swish that for 20 minutes. (ugh) (if you try that be sure to spit into the trash and not the sink) Then I scrub my tongue with more clove oil diluted in water. I should do that every day but ugh. I wonder if it is in the eustachian tube also? How the heck am I gonna treat that? I tried thyme tea (thymol is anti-everything) with a little salt as a nasal rinse and let it linger near the tube. Burned. I won't know of any effect until tomorrow.

The other thing that helps is trying to match the tone with humming or any vocal sound while holding my ears shut. Not too loudly, (except for when I scream into a pillow out of sheer frustration) If I can keep up the humming for 30 seconds or so, I get the T level down to 4 on the left and 2 on the right, but it is short lived relief. I tried the tapping at the back of the skull but my fingers became raw after 4-5 rounds of it- although it does quiet things down for a few minutes.

I am a researcher by nature, and fairly scientific. I won't go down without a fight. My next action is to visit my D.O. and see if he can do some maneuver to help my jaw. I think inflammation is at the core of this. If not, and I have to live with it, may I ask you how I am supposed to do that? Does white noise help?

Is there a progression to the emotions here? Right now I'm in the extreme sadness part, where I can't imagine having to live like this for the next ? years. Is there a next step? Is there acceptance? Does that help? And how in the heck can you NOT drink wine with this condition? That half hour of a buzz is mental relief, and I need it.
Thanks.

 

@JLCbamf I can relate to most everything that you mention> I have dental whiplash. Extreme pain in neck and jaw. Loud and piercing hurtful tinnitus that causes extreme head pain. I also have arthritis and degenerative disc problems and a straighten c spine. I wish I had some words of wisdom other than saying try to carry on with hope of physical treatments. Soft rainfall used from 8 to 10 feet sometimes helps me to sleep.

 

Hi Greg- Dental whiplash! that's the perfect name for it! You sure didn't need that on top of your joint pain.
Rainfall is a great idea- I always sleep right through a storm. Thanks for that idea.