Patients who did not want to live anymore and who ultimately drove 4 hours just to visit Dr. Alkhoury for TMJ treatment!

Mary Jo and Cherry are both patients who have undergone the trials and tribulations of being patients with TMJ disorder. Upon a pleasantly surprising coincidence they happen to meet and was able to discuss their impactful stories and experiences with craniofacial pain as a result.

From travelling to different states to visit specialists and taking care from world recognize pain clinics – neither patient was able to find the right diagnosis or relief to help them recover and enjoy their day to day life.

It has been a harrowing experience at times where even death seemed like a better option than to live with such traumatic pain. Dr. Alkhoury’s intervention and analysis of the matter has not only provided relief but the confidence and trust in his solutions for them.
Transcript Cherry and Mary Jo both have the same disorder – TMJ and craniofacial pain, it is a coincidence – they do not each other but they both showed up at the same time for just a recall visit. MJ is actually getting her braces off today and that is the end of her treatment. Cherry had her treatment done about a year ago, its finished and Cherry was just here for a follow up and MJ’s visit was for de-bracketing after her treatment. So it is an amazing coincidence and let’s just see what they have to say to each other.

Have you ever met her?

C: No I have never met her except for this morning, and as I came in doctor introduced us and said that we have the same experience and I went a year and a half to 2 years with facial pain. Went to 5 doctors, dentists and ended up at UC San Francisco and I was told that I have facial migraines and then my husband saw – we were talking about jaw pain and said you are going to him and it has been the best thing. In 5 minutes he put a orthodontic device on me and the pain subsided so we knew immediately that my jaw was out of whack.

MJ: I had 7 years of debilitating pain. I had 3 little kids when this started and I lived in Michigan. I went to the best pain clinic in the world for head pain I the world called MHNI. I met a neurologist who said that she had seen only 1 percent of people with this kind of pain so I had to go stay for 2 weeks at this special hospital that was in Chelsea Michigan. They tried to figure out what was wrong with me and why I had this pain. I did not have a plan to kill myself but I did not want to live anymore.

C: And I have to say that we both agreed on that this morning that the pain was so horrible that I was getting facial injections for the pain.

MJ: I had nerve blocks, I was on Botox I was on metherjene which is used for people who cannot stop bleeding when they have a baby and the only person that could manage all the medication in California was the top guy at Stanford for pain.

C: You were in worse shape than I was.

MJ: To get to the point of saying if I had to live like this I do not want to live anymore, and I had 5 doctors who would come in and say you need to be hospitalized now, we need to figure out what is going on and you need a break.

C: We were fortunate we found a man who could take care of us. MJ: he changed my life.

Thank you. How long was your treatment for?

MJ: It was 3 years - when I started Dr. Alkhoury put me into an orthodontic and he said he could fix my headaches. The TMJ was so secondary I didn’t really believe it. So I was skeptical because I had been through 7 years of people saying ‘I can do this’. There was one guy who said I had cranial continue which is a very rare head ache which needed a mind clinic in Michigan, probably about 5 different neurologists, and I was on 5 different medicines 4 times a day for years – so this saved my life.

C: I agree.

MJ: Once I started not having any pain I slowly went back to my neurologist to get off the meds and after a year I knew this was the guy. He said if you want to do this permanently we need to use braces and I said whatever you need to do. I trust him.

Awesome so we moved your jaw to the right position and once we confirmed that this is the position almost consistently almost painless after a year we realized this is good to go and now we can move the teeth in that direction and make it more of a long term not just dependent on the orthodontic. It took a total of 3 years of treatment.

MJ: Yeah about 3 years of treatment.

C: I did the same, I had the orthodontics first we thought that would work, and we went into the braces after that so it took a total of about 3 years of my life.

So when did you take your braces off and how long has it been?

C: A year ago and it has been wonderful, no pain consistently, stable. I drive 4 hours to get here, like my husband said no one else is going to touch your teeth again – Dr. Alkhoury is the guy.

MJ: And I would have flown here form Michigan.

Thank you so much so you would recommend TMJ and Sleep apnea center?

C: Oh yeah highly

MJ: Yeah