I had to have one of my permanent teeth pulled a few years back because of a bad root canal. I had it replaced with a permanent implant last year… As you can imagine, I chewed on one side of my mouth for a LONG time during that process. Well, that, in addition to my life time nail biting habit, messed up my jaw alignment.

I figured once my tooth implant was in place the popping and locking that my jaw was doing would fix itself, but it hasn’t. So, I’ve been seeing a TMJ specialist, Dr. Cris Simmons, about it.

After a series of appointments to meticulously measure my jaw movements and take impressions, I was set up with an “occlusal” today, which is essentially a bite guard that I have to wear all the time. It should slowly train my jaw back into the correct bite position.

So I’ve been thrown back to my middle school braces-wearing-days as I slurred through meetings at work this afternoon. I took it out during my Spanish class tonight, as I figured my pronunciation was bad enough without having the slur on top of it.

Note: In the pic… the blue disc that sits between your skull and jaw bone is what makes the popping noise. As your jaw moves off of its regular track, the disc slips out and then pops back in. There are many people with TMJ who wait to deal with their noisy jaws until it becomes super painful, which is an indication that they have completely (and permanently) worn away this disc. I’m glad I’m taking care of this now.