So I guess the main reason for starting a blog is because I am undergoing a fairly invasive surgery next month and I have mixed feelings on it. On the one hand, I get an awesome scar on my face, and I hear the hospital gowns are pretty revealing on the backside and I've worked hard on toning my ass. On the other hand, do I get to keep the hospital gown? 

Awkward and self-deprecating humor aside, I guess I am struggling with a lot of contributing factors of pain, both physically and emotionally. I'm not going to delve into the latter because I'm not wearing enough black eyeliner and blasting enough Elliot Smith to possibly do such topic justice, but the physical aspect can be pretty gnarly, too. I've dealt with tm joint disorders for most of my life. The past two years have seen the most dramatic change, and the past 12 months I have built a knowledgeable team of doctors, specialists, surgeons, and physical therapists who has worked hard to make my everyday life a little more tolerable. Not to say that the health care providers of the past have been negligent in my welfare, but for a long time I think tmj has been seen as one of those medical myths that don't really exist, like menstrual cramping or polio or that silly depression epidemic, and therefore my doctors and dentists said there wasn't really anything I could do about it, other than not make it worse. Great advice. 

After finally getting myself a full time job and benefits to boot, I began working aggressively to help this nuisance that started as simply annoying to gradually so painful and sometimes debilitating that it began to affect my quality of life. Imagine, sitting in the doctor's office in your twenties, thinking you're young and therefore the shit, and nothing is wrong with you, only to find out that everything is wrong with you. And on top of that, not only are you actually old as fuck, but this is further proven by the fact that it's not just a middle ear infection, but rather chronic tinnitus caused by arthritis in your face, so now you can swap pills with your grandma. This is actually happening.

So far, since June 2011, I have undergone the following treatment, with varying success: an ibuprofen/NSAID pain relieving regime (which, of course, is followed with precautions to make sure my stomach doesn't bleed out and make me die an even more painful death), 4 months of weekly physical therapy and ultrasound therapy, two bilateral dislocations that had to be manually forced back into place, 5 weeks of my jaw wired shut and being forced into an all- liquid for much of November and December (not bitter or anything, I swear), numerous muscle relaxants/anti-depressants, arthritis treatment, multiple xrays, a CT, an MRI, countless Vicodin hazes, a year of self-medicating with weed, alcohol, pain pills, and anything else I could get my hands on, and most recently, arthrocentisis. The latter is technically a surgery, although the least invasive and first course of action. However, instead of making the pain go away, it magnified x 100 over the course of several weeks. All my doctor could really do was say "well, at least we know what's wrong with you. You don't have one thing wrong with you. You have three! Congratulations!"

True TMJ surgery is pretty extreme and fairly rare, especially for my age, from what I've told. In fact, my first two TMJ specialists wouldn't do sugery on me, even though they felt confident that I was a qualifying candidate for it, so they referred me out to a colleague. Again, there was some reluctance and grumbling about my age and the whole "crazy risks vs. potential benefits of outcome" debate, but after everything else failed, and made me even more miserable than I started out, I was grimly told that because of my multitude of problems, and chronic pain that wouldn't budge, open joint surgery was the way to go.

I'm kind of nervous for a lot of reasons, most which you probably wouldn't think, but I guess I'm just going to have faith in myself that I'll get through this, and maybe I'll finally get through life where I don't feel like I have to constantly numb the physical pain. Now if only there was a surgery for the emotional pain...