"I was twenty-three and-as I was prone to doing in those years-hadn't eaten anything all day. When I arrived at the downtown hotel room where a friend was hosting a birthday party, the tangy chips beckoned. I crunched on them by the fistful. But by the time I'd emptied the bag, something felt terribly wrong. It wasn't just my cheeks puckering from the acerbity. My jaw stiffened. My ears rang."
"I spent the rest of the night locked in the bathroom, ashamed that I'd eaten so many chips that I couldn't move my mouth or speak. Days later, when I reported the incident to my family doctor, she didn't examine my jaw or run a single test. "You have TMJ," she said. I asked her what that was; she told me to google it and promptly left the exam room."
A binge of Cool Ranch Doritos after fasting caused intense facial symptoms: jaw stiffness, ear ringing, and an electric sensation down the neck. The person became unable to move the mouth or speak and spent the night locked in a bathroom. A family doctor diagnosed TMJ without examining the jaw or running tests, and advised an internet search. WebMD defines temporomandibular disorders (TMD) as conditions causing pain or loss of function in jaw joints and muscles. A dentist attributed lingering ache to nighttime grinding and prescribed an uncomfortable $400 night guard that was discarded.
Read at The Walrus
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