Help with TMJ Treatment & Living Expenses

Update 08/01 - Surgery Cancelled - Right Side has Joined the Party

The original plan was for Open-Joint Arthroplasty (left) on 08/13 but things have taken a turn for the worse and surgery is no longer an option.

7/29 I woke with the familiar pain & symptoms (described below), except now it was on my right side. I knew there was potential for the right side to give out eventually but I thought I would have more time than this. I am now officially up sh*t creek with no paddles.

I had a solid week of being able to reasonably function after the steroid injections kicked in. During this time I secured a flexible gig job in AI programming that is ramping up later this month.

However I am in dire need of emergency assistance to survive the next few weeks/months and to find a long term pain management provider while these AI projects ramp up.

I am utterly hopeless at this point about what will happen next. Botox injections into the jaw muscles have had some success and I found a dentist in my town who does them so I'll be meeting with them soon.

For now I am doing the best I can to adjust to my "new normal" In just a few days I have already started losing partial vision and hearing on my right side and the muscle involvement has fully spread down my neck, trapz and into the shoulder blade.

Original Post

How I got here you ask? A year ago I had a molar extracted manually and it was a traumatic extraction to say the least. Slowly over the next 10 months I started experiencing different kinds pain compared to what I was used to having. 2 months ago (May) life as I knew it completely ceased to exist.

Within an hour of being awake the swelling in my jaw/facial muscles becomes so severe it leaves me incapacitated. A constant head/neck pain comparable to that of a migraine. Light sensitivity to even low level brightness and forget about going outside during daylight hours. My left eye is blurry with limited vision so severe I cannot wear contacts anymore.

Frequent bouts of vertigo / dizziness leaving me unable to drive and sometimes even walk a straight line. Hearing is gone on this side except for a constant buzz and random shooting pains inside the ear canal. Jaw is in a permanent "clenched" state, trouble with swallowing anything that is not a soft food and a constant "popping" & swelling of the hyoid bone.

From there it spreads down the left / back side of my neck causing the muscles to stiffen, swell and form numerous trigger points (knots) that feel like a trail of gravel.

Next it connects into and under the shoulder blade creating a tearing & burning sensation as if I am lifting a weight 10x heavier than I should. When things get extremely bad I can feel numbness, tingling and pain all the way to my finger and toe tips.

The pressure against the nerve bundle in this area is causing the vision & hearing loss along with muscle tremors in the jaw and eye.

OTC medications have done little to help and muscle relaxers only mask the symptoms a short while. I had an MRI last month which confirmed the diagnosis of TMJ showing full disc degeneration with displacement.

On 07/05 the pain became so severe I was convinced I was having a brain aneurysm or stroke and it felt as if my eye was going to pop out of my head. I bit the bullet and took an uber to the ER and they were able to stop things from getting any worse with several corticosteroid / lidocaine injections directly into the jaw muscles and a few neck trigger points to provide immediately pain relief and a longer term solution to reduce the swelling overall. This treatment typically takes a few days to reach maximum benefit (which I am now finally feeling thankfully) but only lasts 2-3 months. My pain level has gone from a daily 8-9 level to a 6-7 level.

I appreciate any help you can offer even if its just sending good vibes into the universe for me