Hi Bryanna,

Thank you for your response.

The protrusion of her jaw definitely was not present before her dental work. She did indeed have her jaw open for a very long time while the dentist struggled with the extraction, and keeping it open like that was painful for her.

My wife, Annette, was seen by a TMJ specialist for nearly a year. The last visit was a number of months ago at which time he told Annette the TMJ was gone. The was confusing for her because she still had all of the same symptoms as before, so nothing seemed different from the time she began treatment.The specialist was at the point where he couldn't offer anything else to help her except that he suggested she begin seeing a psychiatrist to address any stress issues that may be causing her to grind or clench her teeth at night. Annette refuses to see a psychiatrist. After 24 years of marriage I have never heard her grind her teeth but it's possible she clenches them, I'm just not sure. At any rate, she has stopped going to the TMJ specialist since it appeared we were getting nowhere with him, and also because our health insurance covers nothing related to TMJ and we had already spent thousands of dollars to see him.

It seems that Annette gets some mild relief with the anti-inflammatory meds, but she hates taking them long term because of the pain-killing ingredient which makes her sleepy and foggy-headed. She had decent results taking ibuprofen but that began to trouble her stomach so they switched her over to Arthrotec 50. She hates taking any medication at all because she feels this is only masking the real cause of all this, which has yet to be discovered. Before this all began back in April 2009 she took ZERO medication and now she's on the following: Cyclobenzaprine, Arthrotec 50, Elavil, Prilosec, Asterpro, Advair HFA, and Ventolin HFA. And with all of this she honestly has very little relief.

What you said about the relationship between the sinuses and the TMJ area seems spot on. For some reason her sinuses drain very heavily now. In her words it's, "pouring down the back of my throat." This seems to be the first part of an endless cycle where she struggles to stop the drainage, then the pressure builds which causes even more pain in her jaw and face, which causes her to work on clearing her sinuses, and it all starts over. This struggle with sinus drainage really only started this spring which is a full year after the initial jaw pain began. We don't know what caused the drainage to begin. We assumed it was a reaction to the cat we adopted this spring, but now we don't know for sure. We gave the cat up a few months ago, but the sinus issues still continue. The drainage is so bad that it gets into her chest and gives her a very bad, wet cough.

About the swelling in her mouth... It is absolutely always there. In fact it was there even just before Annette visited the dentist for the first time. It is a little tender to press on, but she says it more so causes pain up into her face when she presses on the area, either with her finger or her tongue. This area is indeed right next to a tooth that had a root canal many years ago. She has never had an apicoectomy that we know of. She is an avid flosser and has no periodontal disease. The trouble is that Annette experiences and describes this "swelling" to every doctor and specialist that she's seen and not a one of them can detect it or address it. They all just say, "I don't see anything." I completely believe there's something going on in this area and wouldn't be surprised to find it's what began all these problems for her.

As a matter of fact, the initial dentist made an interesting remark a few weeks after the wisdom tooth extraction. He admitted that he wasn't 100% sure the wisdom tooth was really the problem, and he said that a root canal may be going bad. But with everything that Annette's been going through, which he has fully been aware of, he's never gone back to the issue of a possible bad root canal. Perhaps he's afraid of doing more damage so he doesn't want to do anything else? I don't know. Annette did go to a Root Canal Specialist early this year. They said they couldn't detect any problems, but if there was something wrong, it would present itself eventually.

Well "eventually" can't come soon enough for Annette!

Thanks for reading.
Craig