An Opportunity to Make a Difference
In March of 2019, I, along with approximately 10 others, were given the opportunity to speak in front of a panel of dentists, doctors, and surgeons in Washington DC. Each of us was given two minutes to talk. I called in remotely from my classroom in Florida. Luckily, the time slot given was during my planning. Here is a copy of my actual speech:
Hi, I’m Minda Phinney. I’m speaking to you remotely from my high school classroom where I’m an English teacher in south Florida. I’ve suffered with TMD since I had my tonsils removed at 16. I'm about to turn 40. My jaw was dislocated and locked shut during surgery and didn’t resume its function until several months later with medical intervention. Both the dislocation and the barbaric methods used in attempting to pry my mouth open is where my TMJ nightmare began. At that point, irreversible damage had occurred. Through the years my TMD became worse: increased migraines, special diets, pain when I breath, pain when I walk, my opening was at 15 on a good day, muscle spasms,etc. unfortunately, most professionals don’t know how to deal with a dysfunctional temporal mandibular joint. They don’t understand the debilitating pain it causes. Prior to going the surgical route, I tried conservative methods: splints, braces (for a second time), muscle relaxers, etc. After the more traditional methods, I had 5 bilateral TMJ surgeries, some of which were unnecessary and caused irreversible damage, but I didn’t know it at the time. My last surgery was bilateral TJR/orthographic surgery. Dealing with insurance companies is infuriating and miserable. They look at jaw procedures as cosmetic surgery. I assure you. It is not. This, along with my nickel allergy, and waiting for FDA approval bolstered my depression and anxiety. At one point I felt as though my life was spiraling out of control.
Most people, including dentist, doctors, insurance companies, etc lack empathy towards TMD sufferers. For example, I teach English and next year want to teach something different so I don’t have to lecture as much. I studied and passed the new certification test. I was told I’m too valuable as a teacher to switch positions; hence, my principal doesn’t value my health because she doesn’t understand how a jaw works, the health issues it causes, and the pain I’m in. Unfortunately, this kind of reaction is not uncommon, and this is not the first time I was treated in this manner. As a society, we need more tmd awareness and understanding. We must find a way to educate doctors, insurance companies, and society as a whole about this debilitating disease. As a TMJ community, we need to find was to inundate the public with correct information about this topic. Knowledge and understanding is key to creating change and empathy. I’m literally the face of TMJ, but what people fail to understand is I fake normalcy every single day. I fake being alright. But in reality, almost everyone in the room that I’m speaking to and everyone who has called in is the face of TMJ because we all have this disease in common. We are among the few that truly gets it. Hopefully this will change. Hopefully together we can create change. Thank you for listening.
This was the response I got a few days later:
Good afternoon Minda,
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with TMD over the years. We’re sorry for the pain you’ve endured, but appreciate your willingness to speak about it. With your permission, we’d like to include your comment our project’s public access file and share it with the committee. The committee’s report will be released in Spring 2020 and we look forward to alerting you when the report comes out.
Thanks again,
TMD Study Staff
____________________
Senior Program Assistant
Health and Medicine Division | Find us at nationalacademies.org/HMD
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202.334.3129
