#jaw problems

Useful things that I learned at a hospital appointment today:

- when your lower jaw sits too far forward, you can bring it back to better position by curling your tongue backwards in your mouth as far as you can

- jaw problems like this aren't uncommon amongst people with chronic fatigue, IBS, etc (like me)

(- my fiance really needs to learn to ask for help earlier in my seizures before I wind up on the waiting room floor)

So this was a follow up to when I wound up in A&E after barely being conscious with jaw pain in December(?). The maxofacilliary doctor guy was nice, had decent bedside manner, but I think he was wrong about some stuff, but he also gave me enough info for me to draw my own conclusion in that respect.

So he doesn't think there's anything structurally wrong with my jaw (acceptable), he thinks my jaw coming forward and sitting out of place is a habit I've developed (bullshit), but that I can work on that with the tongue thing (dubious), I'll have good days and bad days (for sure), but that a lot of people in my sort of cluster of diagnoses get this (INTERESTING).

Unless 'habit' infers something different to him or in a medical context, that's bullshit. There's no benefit to having my jaw forward, I don't want it forward, this was never a problem until about 14 months ago. But the point that this happens to other CFS people is interesting because it suggests something different to me: the lack of energy affects our ability to hold our joints as they should be, directly (the jaw joint requires energy we can't give it) or indirectly (I have vague thoughts about the muscles in the neck that have to support the head and how those affect the jaw). And that makes sense because I noticed my jaw is forward as I seizure, which involves me going completely limp and unable to move - if the jaw requires subconscious muscle support and our bodies can't provide it, it's gonna come out of correct position without us knowing why.

This is also why I have my doubts about the efficacy of the tongue thing in my case: even if it were something that helps build the strength of the jaw muscles (not sure of that), when I seizure it's like my brain's connection to control my body has been cut, so it wouldn't matter if I had the strongest jaw in all the land, I can't support my jaw when I fully seizure. But it's still useful to have the tongue thing as a method if I want to get my jaw back to where it should be when I do have energy and control.

But it mostly comes down to 'sucks bro :(', painkiller up when needs be, and use your tongue to put your jaw right. Which is actually slightly more than I anticipated getting out of this. Living with the pain is just our Thing, I guess.

Understanding Jaw Pain: How to Find Relief, Novera Headache Center