I wonder how much my co-pay is going to be

Yesterday's MRI was agony. Well at least the last half hour of it. The first half hour was just getting used to the confined space. It's not the first MRI I've had and this time I was only half way in the machine. And ya know what else? I should have taken out the hoops in my ear at home! Getting them out at the imaging center, one broke so now I've got to find a replacement. Not to mention getting them out quickly irritated the peircings and now I can't get them back in. Nice. AND! I didn't have to get undressed this time! So I wasn't freezing for a change. This Machine had warm air instead of cool air, even if my elbows still were jammed against the sides of the machine, I was warm.

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At first it was dizzing because my neck and face are so damn tight and having my head anchord in place so I couldn't move it had my brain spinning but as soon as that passed I was okay. At least this time the tech managed to get the earplug firmly in place unlike the last MRI I had and one plug wasn't exactly in and OMG...

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Anyhoo, after the base images were taken it was time for the pain to start. They had something caled a "Clicker" that they placed between my teeth, bite wise and the tech told me "We're going to click this open to about 15, 16 clicks to open up the jaw joint okay?" It must have been the look of horror because she added, "Is that okay?"

Pfffftttt... 15 or 16 clicks maybe the "Norm" for most folks but for Raven we got to 8 clicks and I was ready to scream so she backed it back to 6 clicks and left it there. Of course by forcing my jaw open so wide it triggered the muscle spamisms and then I couldn't stop bitting down on it. My teeth hurt the muscles got so tight and half an hour later we had to pry the "clicker" out from between my teeth.

Now if you curious about what is the norm for people to be able to open their mouth, take two fingers and place them between your teeth so that one finger is atop the other. This should be easy and how wide your mouth should open without effort. Placing a drinking staw between my teeth is an effort, so no the "Norm" does not apply to Raven.

Ya know it hard to breath when you've been crying and your nose stuffs up and they don't want you to breath through your mouth and you can't move your head. Ya that last half hour was pure misery.



And then I got to go to work for the rest of the day since my appointment was for 7:30am.

Yesterday was a very long, long day and I pray the MRI shows absolutelty no signs of TMJ because I've done just about every TMJ treatment with no improvement and no relief, I WANT RELEIF DAMNIT! and I hope I held still enough so I don't have to repeat it.

And since I was searching for images of the MRI machine I found This On Sex in an MRI Machine! Are you kidding me??? It must have been an interesting project with very skinny volunteers! :D

So in short I'm still very sore today, yesterday was a day to give praise and thanks to the drug companys for vicodin and muscle relaxants and Elz for understanding how much it hurts.
Ta!