hello, i am a girl in hs and for about 2-3 years now, i have had symptoms associated with tmj. my mouth doesn't open fully, it only opens about 3-4 inches. my jaws would hurt if i chew a lot of hard/taffy like stuff. and sometimes i get lockjaws typically in the morning.
recently though, (about 6months ago) i've noticed my upper jaw has been shifting to the front, not allowing my upper teeth to meet my bottom. it is shifting everyday, now my upper set of teeth or jaw wont meet with my bottom set of teeth. it has a big big gap which if i close my mouth, i can squeeze out my tongue through the gap about 1cm-2cm or so. (so gross/scary) this has caused me to develope a nasty lisp, which i didnt realize at first, my peers told me about it.
I NEVER had a lisp and my upper set or teeth and bottom set ALWAYS matched. i dont know whats happeneing, what can i do in this situation? and my jaw is moving around everyday, relocating it self on my face! my face shape even changed a bit!
ive talked to my dentist about it, but they assigned me to a specialist and i wont see him for another 4-5 months.
and would they give me braces? or surgery? because its pretty serious tmj. AHHH

please, help me out i am so scared.
thanks alot

in case you haven't been told TMJ is a form of arthritis. it can affect any part of your body. it is known as the great deceiver. while you wait for the specialist go to walmart, in the pharmacy dept and get the apparatus that will help you to quit grinding your teeth at night. Stay away from hard foods. it may help to put heat on the side of your jaw (helps mine) try to avoid stress. Look up TMJ on the internet to learn more about it. TMJ stands for Temporal Mandibular Joint. and it is a pain.
Don't be afraid. Evey thing will be ok.

It is crucial to know the reasons why sciatic nerve pain happens in order for you to know their proper treatments. The Sciatic nerve is known to be the longest nerve of the body. when this nerve gets swollen or gets squeezed, a symptom called the Sciatica occurs. The pinched nerve is called the compressed nerve.

Sciatic nerve pain is caused by a lot of reasons. Some of the more popular and well known ones include a disc belonging to the Lumbar Spine that gets herniated. this happens when the spinal disc center is compressed against the nerve roots of the spinal cord. Spinal Stenosis is also a well known cause. this is when the nerve roots are pressured against the spinal cord because the gap of the spinal canal gets narrowed. On the other hand, Spinal Osteoarthritis occurs whenever the nerve is irritated by some factors like the bone, piriformis syndrome, and a few more. another cause of sciatic nerve pain is Spondylolishtesis. this is when the vertebrae becomes misaligned and causes an impairment of the sciatic nerve. Pregnancy, muscle strain and Piriformis Syndrome are three other causes of sciatic nerve pain.

The presence of these symptoms results to a sharp pain that begins from the lower portion of the back and then goes down to the back of the legs, the knee and the foot. What is unique about this kind of pain is that it is only felt on the half side of our body and always in the place where that nerve impairment is located.

Generally, the treatment of sciatic nerve pain is through conventional methods. however, not all of these treatments are effective. In order for the patient to be relieved of the pain, massage therapy should be done numerous times together with a few stretching exercises for the purpose of concentrating on the spastic muscles and calming them as well. There are pain medications and muscle relaxants that some doctors prescribe. Anti-depressants can also help in pain management in the same way that steroid injections made epidurally are used to lessen inflammation and nerve pressure. while these medications are very efficient, they also carry significant side effects thus patients are allowed a maximum of three injections per year.

The method of sciatic nerve pain treatment can either be natural, conventional, minimally invasive or through surgical means. whatever be the case, all they aim for is to relieve the patient from sciatic nerve pain. it all depends on how the patient prefers to be treated.

Psoriatic arthritis is a combination illness expressing symptoms of both psoriasis and arthritis. Psoriasis is a skin condition that manifests with red, patchy skin and swelling. Arthritis is characterized by an inflammation of the joints and pain in the joints. when the two conditions are combined, about 2% of the Caucasian population is affected.

Most Common Areas Affected

The areas most commonly affected by psoriatic arthritis symptoms include the knees, elbows, scalp, belly button, genitals and anus. while only 2% of the total population may be affected, nearly 10% of the people diagnosed with psoriasis are affected by inflammation that could be deemed arthritic. If a patient present with psoriasis and arthritis, the condition is automatically termed psoriatic arthritis. About one million people currently have the condition and the numbers are equal among men and women. this is not a gender discerning condition.

First Symptoms

The first symptoms may appear to be common signs of aging. these may include pain appearing in the hands, feet and elbows. the joints may appear purple in color. As the condition most often hits the aged population, there is often a large gap between the presentation of these symptoms and the official diagnosis which can lead to additional joint problems that cannot be reversed.

Who is most Often Affected?

While the condition most often presents in 40 and 50 year olds, younger cases have been noted. the skin symptoms and arthritic symptom rarely present at the same time in patients. most often, skin will show the signs of psoriasis and a doctor will diagnose that condition. Later, when arthritis appears, the combination diagnosis is given. the time span between the initial diagnosis of arthritis or psoriasis and the presentation of the contributing symptoms can be 20 years or more. the longer the time frame between initial diagnosis the presentation of a second set of symptoms – the harder psoriatic arthritis is to diagnose.

Other Body Systems Affected

The skin and joints are not the only body systems affected by the condition. As a rheumatic disease, inflammation can affect internal organs as well. the eyes, heart, lungs and kidneys are most often affected. when rheumatic symptoms present, doctors may confuse the psoriatic arthritis for other conditions like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis or reactive arthritis. the difficulty with final diagnosis is compounded if the spine shows signs of inflammation as there are several arthritic conditions that can cause spine swelling.

Can Permanent damage Occur?

The inflammation and swelling associated with the condition can lead to permanent damage of the joints. in some cases, the connective and protective tissues between the finger and knee joints can deteriorate to the point that bone is rubbing on bone. If the condition is not treated surgically, the joints will begin changing shape direction. the pain can be unbearable when psoriatic arthritis reaches this level of severity.

How to get Help

If a patient is diagnosed with psoriasis, there is a good chance arthritis will come about with age. these patients need to watch out for swelling and pain in the joints and report any changes to their skin and family physicians.

Having arthritis first makes diagnosis a bit easier. Psoriasis present with very noticeable symptoms and if skin changes occur, the patient will also have to speak with their family physician about the chance of having psoriatic arthritis. however, a skin doctor or dermatologist will need to be seen as well.

A great all Natural Anti-Inflammatory supplemnt to add to your diet to combat the pain of Psoriasis is Nopalea.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD March 31, 2011 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON — Japan’s nuclear emergency highlights a big medical gap: few treatments exist to help people exposed to large amounts of radiation.

But some possibilities are in the pipeline — development of drugs to treat radiation poisoning, and the first rapid tests to tell who in a panicked crowd would really need them.

The U.S. calls these potential products “countermeasures,” and they’re part of the nation’s preparations against a terrorist attack, such as a dirty bomb. but if they work, they could be useful in any kind of radiation emergency.

“Thinking of terrorist events is what drives us. Mother Nature can be much of a terror, too,” says Dr. Robin Robinson, who heads the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, that funds late-stage research of products the government deems most likely to pan out.

BARDA has invested $164 million for research into anti-radiation treatment candidates since 2008, and $44 million for radiation testing — in hopes of adding such products to the nation’s emergency medical stockpile soon. That’s in addition to research dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.

Japan’s crisis — where last week two nuclear plant workers were hospitalized for radiation burns — is sure to renew attention to a field that’s long been overshadowed by the hunt for protections against bioterrorism among the radiation projects considered farthest along:

— Rapid tests that could spot dangerous radiation doses with mere finger-pricks of blood. Already, a prototype machine sits at new York’s Columbia University that could check thousands of people.

— Some drugs now used to help cancer patients boost their infection-fighting blood cells, sold under such names as Neupogen. They may do the same thing for radiation victims.

— An injection that saved monkeys from highly lethal beams. It seems to protect the body’s two most radiation-sensitive spots, the bone marrow and lining of the gut.

Today, there are only a few proven therapies for radiation injuries. Good supportive care — lots of fluids, infusions of blood-clotting platelets, and infection-fighting antibiotics — is key for acute radiation syndrome, an overall poisoning that can begin causing symptoms days to weeks after a super-high exposure. to guard against longer-term harm, doses of potassium iodide can protect against future thyroid cancer by shielding the thyroid from one type of fallout, radioactive iodine. Other treatments can help the body eliminate radioactive cesium and a few other isotopes.

Part of the challenge is radiation’s variety of injuries — burns, bone marrow and gastrointestinal damage, lung scarring, the later-in-life cancer risk. Yet outside of an immediate blast zone where open wounds and burns make injury clear, there’s no fast way to tell who got a huge dose.

Those Geiger counter-style monitors used on power-plant workers in Japan? They detect contamination on clothing or skin that might not enter the body, not what the body has absorbed, says medical physicist David Brenner, director of Columbia’s Center for Radiological Research.

Moreover, previous emergencies have shown that sheer stress can cause nausea and diarrhea that mimic some early symptoms of radiation sickness in people who weren’t exposed, he adds.

“Before you can start to treat people, you need to know what radiation doses they got,” Brenner says.

Brenner’s team built a robotic machine named RABiT — for “rapid automated biodosimetry tool” — that can analyze finger-stick blood samples quickly. the eventual goal is to be able to test 30,000 samples in a day. Brenner says federal approval is still a few years away but that the prototype could be used in an emergency if health officials shipped blood samples to his lab.

What about treatments?

Cells in the bone marrow and GI tract are extremely vulnerable to radiation. They overreact to what should be reparable damage and commit cellular suicide, says Dr. Andrei Gudkov of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Gudkov’s team created a drug based on a protein from normal gut bacteria, named flagellin, that blocks some of the cellular destruction and also stimulates recovery of remaining cells. It dramatically improved the survival of monkeys treated up to 48 hours after they were zapped. And safety testing in 150 healthy people so far suggests the main side effect is a flulike reaction, Gudkov says.

BARDA’s Robinson says that closest to the emergency stockpile may be those cancer drugs that spur growth of infection-fighting blood cells. Later this year, his agency will begin a push for research to prove they could work similarly in a radiation emergency.

“There isn’t going to be a simple solution to any of this,” cautions Dr. Nelson Chao of Duke University’s countermeasures program, who also co-chairs the Radiation Injury Treatment Network. “There will be a lot of little steps to address the plethora of toxicities that come from radiation.”

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