i'm tired of these Kafkaesque dentist appointments [Part 2]

Root canal and gold crown on the top left. Gap on the top right. All payed without insurance, but now I finally have insurance. Oh well. At least I got it all done at the dentistry school so it was kinda cheap. It took a year, but it's finally over.

May 2023, my jaw popped. A crackle in the joint, and I couldn't close my mouth all the way on that side. I was terrified for the next day, but my wife recommended a chiropractor she used to see when she hurt her back by - of all things - lifting a bucket filled with dried cement, with her back. I set an appointment for as soon as I possibly could. He was helpful. The chiropractor is a cool place. They had an option to do some kind of laser treatment. Shine some kind of red laser at my jaw to activate cell reproduction. I don't remember how much it cost, but I got it. The chiropractor himself was such a cool guy. We had some nice conversations. I really enjoyed going there.

As for the cause of my jaw popping, we figured it might be mostly because of the physical trauma of getting a whole entire molar removed from that area. My skull had to readjust, even if in tiny ways, to its new shape. That included doing something that hurt and tightened a muscle right under my ear. I could move my jaw around and just barely get it to stretch, kinda like when you have an allergic reaction deep in your throat and you can "scratch" it by swallowing and clicking your throat. you know what i mean. Kinda like that, but more skeletomuscular. I have looked up pictures online and am pretty sure I found the exact muscle/ligament it is that's tight.

To better my chances of fixing my tightened jaw - I could not close it all the way, it was so sore, I was scared - I found a TMJ specialist who is not on the chiropractor side of things, but dental. This also became my new dental place, even to this day. He suspected I might grind or clench my jaw in my sleep. One fix includes a mouth guard retainer thing I would wear at night. But in order to get that, I needed an analysis of my sleep, so I was referred to a sleep clinic to do an at-home sleep study.

The TMJ dentist also noticed other mouth problems, like how I technically have an overbite. Not buck teeth, but my top front teeth cover my bottom front teeth almost all the way. As a result, my bite naturally lands - or is only able to land - with my jaw held just a little back. As I run my tongue along my top teeth, from gold crown to hurt jaw, I can tell that it dips down in the middle.

I was told to wait for a call from the sleep clinic. I waited. Meanwhile, I changed jobs, and got a new health insurance, but more important to the story, a new sleeping schedule. I hate HATE waking up early. Before 9. Hell. I found a job that gave me the option to work 4 days a week either 6AM-4:30PM, or 11AM-9:30PM. Obviously, I took the latter option. And 4 days a week, a 3-day weekend!? :D Nowadays, I go to bed around 2AM, wake up around 10AM, get home from work around 10PM. And I have three whole weekend days <3 Anyway, what I mean by this is, I'm becoming more prone to insomnia.

I finally got an appointment with the sleep clinic. Everyone who I talked to there, nurses, doctors, was really weirded out that I was doing a sleep study. Normally, those are to test for sleep apnea. And quite frankly, people with sleep apnea are usually ... fat. I'm 107 pounds. (5'4", if that helps you imagine me as anything other than anorexic).

They gave me an apparatus, if you will, that straps around my chest, with a plastic brick pressed to my sternum. That tube thing that goes over my ears and into my nostrils (not deep, just there) and a finger tip pulse reader thing. Fucking hell.

Well, I waited until the weekend, set it up for my first night, and lied down to sleep. On my back -_- with doodads all over my body. I slept like a baby. That is, fitful, thrashing, crying, wide awake the whole time. I needed to give it at least 6 hours of my slumber. There was a paper to fill out with things like "the time I started the sleep study," "the time I ended it," "if I got up in the middle of the night and why", and other questions.

I slept for about and hour and a half that first night. The sun started coming up, my wife was going to get up soon, so I took that machine off of me, and dropped it on the floor and proceeded to lie on my side and sleep for a few hours.

The next night, I slept on the couch. Limiting bothersome factors, such as a sleeping body next to me, and the ability to slightly sleep on my side thanks to the back of the couch which would be to my side so I could lean on it and be a little tiny bit on my side, or at least not have one arm falling flat behind me. I would be able to focus on sleeping, for real. I needed to give it at least four and a half hours to complete the six. I think the worst part of it, the thing that kept me awake the most, was performance anxiety.

"Okay, strap this cold brick to your chest. Lie on YOUR BACK :) And sleep. It's as simple as that! <3 Go ahead. Sleep. :) :* Do it now. <3<3 DO IT NOW. SLEEP. SLEEP NOW!!! SLEEP!!! FUCKING SLEEP!!!!! :) <3 "

I gave it just about four and a half hours of very interrupted sleep. I filled out the paper like an angsty teen student who doesn't believe in government or god, and I went to bed.

When I finally got back with the clinic to review the results of my sleep study, it turned out that the apparatus did not turn off the first night (morning) when I took it off at sunrise. It recorded the one hour of sleep I got, and then I took it off and it recorded nothing until the battery died. The second night was for nothing. ... The FIRST night was for nothing. They sent me home with the promise of a follow up call to set me an appointment for an in-house sleep study. Not my house. In their lab/doctor office. Somewhere. Bruh, I can barely sleep in my own bed. Like hell I'll willingly sleep ... wherever that was going to be. When they called, I politely declined. What was the purpose for this kafkaesque set of appointments from a TMJ dentist to a at home sleep study to an in-house sleep study? Just so I can get a mouth guard to sleep with so my jaw doesn't pop again due to stress. THIS is stressful. My jaw first popped over a year ago! I'm doing fine.

Just fine. Not great. Once you turn 30, your body falls apart. You hurt your wrist once, and it holds residual pain for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life. You're slowly dying.

It had been a long time since I went to the chiropractor. That's fine. It had been a while since I went to the dentist. That's not fine. I set an appointment. Just a normal appointment. I'm done worrying about my jaw. It hasn't popped since, but it has held a faint residual soreness. This is how my body is now.

I continued with normal dental work. I got some fillings today on my two front teeth. I'm numb. Not physically, at least not anymore. Emotionally. Yeah, my two front teeth are just barely slightly differently shaped, a paranoia I get from dental work, that I mentioned in Part 1. But whatever. What can I do about it. Floss, I guess. brush real good. I can't floss all the way to the gums between two of these teeth now. I hope it smoothens out. I'm tired of dentist appointments. so tired of all this. not just dentist appointments. doctor appointments. i'm tired of my body falling apart. i'm tired of my consciousness being confined to this tabernacle of clay, this mortal folly, this dust of the earth. I will wither away and rot before I die. Then I will be free.