....the occlusion specialist.
He adjusts the mouth splint each time, which requires a lot of manipulating my jaw. He takes new wax molds after each adjustment; last time my jaw did crazy movement, which he said showed that it still wasn't finding its correct home and didn't surprise him. This time the movement was a little more of what he expected (altho he has told me that he doesn't have any expectations, the jaw will go where it needs to to find its home and the bite is correct and stabilizes).
On the drive home I noticed that the ringing was now a high pitched squeal, especially in the right ear, which is the side of my jaw that moved the most. And my jaws are spasming now; a slight tap, tap, tap, tap, tap of my teeth against the splint. Usually I don't notice this after a visit, but today he did do a lot of manipulation, yet it didn't seem more than usual. I'll take an ibuprofen and the muscle relaxant for sure; he says as the mouth and jaw dance (my words) but not in harmony, there is a lot of inflammation, and then tightness of the muscles, which then causes more problems.
As I was lying back and he was seated behind me moving my jaws and peering into my mouth (doesn't sound pleasant, but I guess the innards of the human body are worse for grossness) and seeing where the jaw and teeth are in relation to each other, he held the jaw position and told me that's where it should be. I do wish one of the many dentists and the orthodontist I have seen over the last 25-30 years, with their multitudes of x-rays they've all insisted I need, would have taken the time to really look at my mouth, jaw, and teeth. But, perhaps they just aren't trained to observe this. That is my next question: why not?
I asked him again about the possibility of surgery, he looked at the molds of my teeth and jaw, showed me the overbite and said without the splint in, my bottom teeth would be going into the roof of my mouth, so he stills thinks it will be necessary.
Yay.
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