So naturally I put off making an appointment with my regular physiotherapist for a couple of weeks, as you do. But eventually the pain got so great that I was forced to make the call.
After phoning and asking if any of the physiotherapists did ‘jaw work’ and being assured that they did, I found out two visits and $130 later that actually they didn’t!
I did get to experience the horror of receiving a jaw massage... twice, which I was told just before she started it the first time, was one of the worst experiences you could go through as far as massage was concerned, and I would have to agree with her 100% on that point.
As any good physio will do, she found the most painful site I had by poking everything until I grimaced and roll around the table, and then she smiled as she got to work rubbing, pushing, poking, stretching and basically torturing me cheerfully for the next half hour or so.
It was at the beginning of the second session that she told me that my jaw was too severe for her to work on and I would have to go see someone who specialises in this area of work, then she preceded to inflict her horrible, horrible torture on me once more outside and inside my mouth before sending me on my way.
Again, I did not rush to make the appointment with this new physiotherapist as I did NOT want to go through that pain again. But of course, my jaw pain got the better of me and I was once more forced to make the dreaded phone call.
Which brings me to today.
One hour and $147.50 later I survived my first session with the specialist.... just.
My goodness, I thought the first physio was rough but this one made her look like a pussycat. I was given ultrasound on my cheeks to relax my jaw muscles so that she could start her work on them but it was a very messy procedure which resulted in warm gooey gel in both my ears and most of my hair.
As she roughly wiped barely half the goop off me she said that couldn’t be helped then she proceeded to contort my jaw. Her treatment was nothing at all like the first physio, there was no massage to find the owie bits, just sheer pain from the get go. At one stage she said to me, ‘ok now you are not allowed to bite me, you have to trust me and if the pain gets too much to bear, wave your hand in the air and I will stop’. Before I had a chance to say ‘excuse me, I don’t think I like the sound of that’????????? She had me in a head lock, her hand resting on my teeth and was trying to rip my jaw off. I thought I was either going to die, break my jaw or faint from the pain. When one tries you rip your jaw off in such a manner it actually blocks your windpipe and you can’t breathe, not a comforting feeling at all.
She took a break and I took that opportunity to say ‘I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe as you were doing that, I couldn’t breathe’. She ignored me and said ‘ok, don’t bite me, trust me, and wave your hand in the air if the pain gets too much to bear’, and got back to ripping my jaw off again before I could take a breath, jump off the table or wave my hands in the air.
Well the last thing I could do was think of waving my hands in the air, all I could think of was that I didn’t have time to take a breath, and if I wave my hands in the air she would probably break my neck, and I thought I was going to black out which would be a good thing as I didn’t really want to be awake to hear my jaw snap.
Just as I had gotten to the point of not being able to take any more of this ‘abuse’ she tells me she has finished and is very happy with the results. She thinks she can help me, but I need more work next week as my jaw is still terribly out of alignment.
She suggests valium would be good to relax my jaw, I think to myself valium would be good to knock me out while she rips my jaw off again next week.
Finally I am able to stagger out of there after she gave me a list of do’s and don’ts, a list of exercises to do at home and more pain that when I arrived. Although I am in all this pain, I actually can’t feel my jaw as my face is all numb yet tingling and throbbing at the same time. I think my jaw is still there but I can’t be sure so as soon as I got into my car, I checked in the rear-view mirror, just to make sure. Yes, I still have my jaw, that was a relief.
I am so not looking forward to next week’s encounter with Kara.
