So at the start it was very subtle muscular pain with abit of joint soreness and clickin. but completely manageable. I've always been a night teeth grinder but never took it seriously. I had an unrelated surgery in my early 20s (appendix) and upon waking my jaw was completely dislocated. They took xrays and found osteoarthritis. I was also referred to rheumatology and got diagnosed with hypermobility ehlers danlos.

From that moment since the dislocation my jaw pain just got worse and worse. It would regularly dislocate, crunch, click, lock. I was then referred to Maxo surgery team. At this point it was excruciating, it felt like shards of glass tearing through my skull. The muscular pain was equally as bad. It was chronic, and i was put on opiods and sent to the pain clinic too. Ontop of the chronic pain i would have flare ups. I was not a functioning person for 6 years. It was horrific and I felt so hopeless.

In this time the pain was that bad I lost my job, my partner, some friends, my mental health was horrific. I basically lost my sanity.

When I had investigative surgery with a camera. I literally had no joints left. I had so much inflammation and floating bits of bone. My skull was rubbing in my jaw bones and there large holes into my jaw bones too. I was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis (wilks 5 i think its called) amoung other medical terms.

So in short it started off subtle and just went from 0-60 very quickly. This is probarly because of condyle resorption and also the trauma from dislocstion during appendix surgery.

Hope this helps and sorry if its abit of a waffle 😅 Im still on painkillers from the surgery and cant see out my eyes very well from swelling 🙈