Vancouver dental practitioner Suzie Bergman has struggled with continual ache for 35 years.
At 19 years previous, she was run over whereas pushing a caught automobile, inflicting injury to her temporomandibular joint — the hinge connecting the decrease jaw to the cranium. Over the following 10 years, her ache worsened.
Between 2001 and 2022, she underwent 5 surgical procedures to completely reconstruct her jaw — however not with out enduring a long time of continual ache rooted within the restricted understanding of the temporomandibular joint.
At the moment, her jaw contains two titanium plates, and her ache is manageable.
Bergman, now 57, owns a dental observe alongside her husband known as Dentistry on Officers Row, 701 Officers Row, Vancouver. Inside her observe and analysis, she advocates for an built-in method to care — combining dental, medical and psychological well being companies — to enhance the understanding and remedy of temporomandibular dysfunction, or TMD. This dysfunction can have an effect on the jaw joint, in addition to the related muscle groups and nerves.
“There is some stigma associated with having this kind of pain, because if people don’t experience it, they don’t really understand how bad it is,” Bergman stated. “My mission is to bring mental health and psychological care into that picture, because nobody who experiences severe pain on a daily basis can say they’re not depressed. But a lot of times that will be dismissed.”
In June, Bergman spoke on the TEDxStrathcona Ladies occasion in Alberta, Canada, a convention devoted to sharing ladies’s concepts. There, she shared her expertise dwelling with temporomandibular dysfunction — a dysfunction that’s typically misdiagnosed and misunderstood, she stated.
“I think what is really important for people to realize is somebody can be in a lot of pain and look like they’re perfectly fine,” Bergman stated. “When somebody says that they’re experiencing pain and it’s invisible, you need to believe that person.”
Disjointed
When Bergman was 31 years previous, she started experiencing jaw ache so extreme that she might not ignore it. She might barely open her mouth and misplaced 10 kilos in two weeks, she stated.
Her husband, Ryan, took her to see an oral surgeon, who requested if she had ever been in an accident because of the vital quantity of scar tissue and joint degeneration in her jaw.
That’s when a reminiscence from when she was 19 got here flooding again.
“Even though my jaw was doing all of those weird things, we weren’t making the connection,” she stated.
In 1987 on nation roads in West Virginia, Bergman was using in a automobile with a buddy after they drove off the highway. Bergman obtained out to assist push.
“We were on an incline, so the car flew backwards, throwing me over a huge hill and landed perpendicular with me underneath it,” Bergman stated. “I blacked out. When I opened my eyes, my friend was kneeling beside me.”
On the emergency room, Bergman stated her complete physique ached, however she was keen to go away as a result of she didn’t need her dad and mom to know what really occurred.
The ER physician didn’t conduct any vital examination of her jaw or mouth, Bergman stated, which exemplifies the separation between medication and dentistry.
“What the ER doctor and I failed to realize that day was that I had hit my head so hard that the impact had caused bleeding and cartilage damage inside my jaw joints, and lack of early intervention led to a lifetime of pain and dysfunction that changed my life,” Bergman stated.
Poorly understood
The temporomandibular joint are the 2 joints in entrance of every ear.
The muscle groups controlling the joints are connected to the mandible and permit the jaw to maneuver in three instructions: up and down, aspect to aspect and ahead and again, based on The TMJ Affiliation.
“Temporomandibular disorders are a complex, under-researched, and poorly understood set of conditions characterized by pain in the jaw joint and surrounding tissues frequently associated with limitation in jaw movements,” The TMJ Affiliation stated on its web site.
Bergman underwent her first two surgical procedures beginning on the age of 31.
“My second surgery failed,” Bergman stated. “Once you’ve had your jaw operated on, you usually have chronic pain for the rest of your life. It’s really sad people aren’t aware how big of a problem this is.”
Bergman held off on any extra surgical procedures till 2019, as a result of she wished the expertise to advance first.
She underwent her first titanium jaw surgical procedure then, finishing two procedures on the best aspect that yr. The ultimate stage, addressing the left aspect, was accomplished in 2022.
In Bergman’s expertise, individuals who endure from TMD can have upwards of 20 surgical procedures of their lifetime, she stated.
Interlinked
In keeping with the Nationwide Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Analysis, circumstances associated to the temporomandibular joint have an effect on 35 million individuals worldwide — the bulk being ladies.
As a affected person and doctor, Bergman understands how continual ache can rework an individual’s life, particularly their psychological well being. Bergman’s expertise dwelling with continual ache has enormously influenced her method as a practitioner, she stated.
In keeping with the American Psychiatric Affiliation, individuals dwelling with continual ache are at heightened threat for psychological well being issues, together with melancholy, nervousness and substance use issues.
At Dentistry on Officers row, about 70 p.c of the sufferers Bergman treats have TMD and have skilled years of continual ache, she stated.
“That’s why I’m really interested in educating other providers,” Bergman stated, “I feel like my patients are very grateful when they meet me. I feel like it definitely gives me the perspective and empathy that is necessary.”
Bergman stated when well being care suppliers have a look at every a part of the physique in several examination rooms, they’ll overlook the entire particular person. It’s why she desires to proceed to advocate for breaking down the silos that separate medical, dental and psychological care.
“In my ideal world, physicians, dentists and behavioral health providers would all be under one roof, and they would discuss each patient together,” Bergman stated. “My hope is that we’ll be able to make a clinic like that.”
In the course of the pandemic, Bergman grew to become extra concerned in advocacy and schooling, together with working with federal businesses to create extra pathways for sufferers and researching TMD at Oregon Well being & Science College. She has additionally served as the choice chair for the TMJ Basis’s on-line fellowship program since 2021.
Since Bergman’s TEDx Discuss, she’s related with different sufferers who’ve tales just like her personal.
“The more we speak about what this is, and the more awareness we bring to it, people in the future won’t have to suffer as much,” Bergman stated.