Okay, so I got checked yesterday afternoon and he said to let it heal naturally for 60-100 days without using the mouthguard/medications I was prescribed by my family doctor/dentist. His assessment was that the mouth guard was actually making the problem worse v.s. helping it to heal, which would explain why there were days it seemed like it was getting better, then the next day it would feel worse. He said wind Instrument players who are prescribed mouth guards are told to use them because the cartilage in the jaw slips out of place, causing the jaw to misalign itself; that’s what TMJ disorder is. He said the cartilage in my jaw is NOT out of place. What I have is a severe strain in the Masseter muscle (chewing muscle) itself, has nothing to do with the corner of my jaw. He took x-rays and showed it to me, the corner of my jaw is fine. In other words, my dentist actually misdiagnosed me and should have taken the time to examine me more closely. When I asked why he would have misdiagnosed me, he said it was because he’s probably seen Wind Instrument players who had similar problems and did have TMJ, so here I come along with pain and he just assumed that I, too, had my jaw out of alignment. It’s kind of like “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” type of thing. So my dentist got complacent on me. My family doctor isn’t to blame, because he was just going by the Medical Records that the dentist provided to him. He assured me that he would be having a talk with my dentist.
I feel better knowing that I don’t have a misaligned jaw and by letting it rest naturally that it will heal itself and I can start playing again. I guess the best thing to do now is use this time to go and do other fun things like hiking, camping, fishing, etc.. to get my mind off of this. My Instructor assured me he wouldn’t drop me for something like this; he only drops students who aren’t putting forth the effort/taking things seriously. I was supposed to do my assignment of Improvising on Tenor Sax over the song of “Moondance” by Van Morrison on the 30th of this month, but he told me to just chill and we’ll take care of it when I can start playing again. He told me he didn’t think it would take very long for me to get back to feeling like myself after I heal because the Saxophone is already in my head, fingers, etc.. it would be just a matter of getting my body to respond to what my mind wants to bring out on the Sax. I do feel better now, but this is going to be a really, really LONG 60-100 days of having to wait……