Indiana - Day 25 - Bluffton doctor

Bluffton KOA
Tuesday, 25 June 2019

I've finally had enough of the pain in my jaw that's been hanging around for at least 2 weeks now.  It keeps me awake at night and distracts me during the day and makes eating painful.  Yesterday afternoon I found an ENT doctor in Bluffton who could take me this afternoon, so I decided to stay here another night.

When it first started hurting, I thought I'd bitten my tongue.  Then I decided it must be one of my teeth.  But I never could track the pain down to either of these things so then thought it might be my jaw hinge.  Finally it occurred to me that what was right there at that hinge was my ear, so I decided I must have an ear infection.  Having never had one before, I couldn't be sure and it's not surprising that wasn't the first thing I thought of, but that was my uninformed diagnosis.

That wasn't the doctor's informed diagnosis, though.  She told me my ears looked just fine, my nose looked just fine, my blood pressure was high (nothing new) but my glands seemed just fine, so her conclusion based on where I said the pain was, was my jaw.  She called it TMJ, which meant nothing to me but turns out to stand for temporomandibular joint disorder.  She gave me a handout that said to stick to a soft diet for a while, use a heating pad several times a day, and "avoid excessive talk, long conversations or clenching teeth."

Which meant I had to stop talking to myself so much and try to notice when I was clenching my teeth.  Actually, I think this whole thing may have started with frustration or tension or stress - what with the dogs acting like idiots half the time, and ongoing pains in both my upper arms, and not getting enough time off to stay current with my blog, and the ANTS, it wouldn't be too odd for me to feel a little tense now and then. 

But I resolved to do what the doctor said and avoid foods that needed chewing for a few days and pull out my heating pad.

Back at the campground, the staff was as unaccommodating as they'd been yesterday and I decided to head back to the KOA I'd stayed in when I first got to Indiana.  I liked the campground and knew how I could be comfortable with the dogs there and knew it was only 2 miles from the Michigan border for when my month is up.  Being able to go and stay in one spot for several days in a row would give me some unbroken time to get things caught up, and maybe help with the jaw-relaxing instruction.  I called and they said they could fit me in and I could have the same site I'd had before, so that's where we'll go tomorrow.