It felt like I had a needle through my back, and it was coming out my front, and I couldn't twist past it. Your mental health is affected. You get brain fog, you're tired, you're fatigued. You can't function as a woman and that's every day for 10 years.
I am running. Ahead lie endless mangrove swamps, behind the green-blue waters of the Caribbean. My mind is rising away from my lurching body, which is on a treadmill and attached to a beeping machine by wires and tubes. Nurses circle. The gradient increases, as does the speed. Dignity slips away as my body fights for breath. They're after my "VO2 max", the amount of oxygen my body can absorb during my maximum capacity for exercise.
Around half a million Irish people suffer from what is called 'temporomandibular disorder', with women affected at a higher rate than men. Discomfort, clicking and pain in the jaw can be at best a nuisance, and at worst debilitating. People who suffer from temporomandibular disorder (TMD), which refers to a variety of conditions that affect the jaw area, can experience stress, chronic pain and poor sleep.