Productivity is something we’re all interested in.  How can we optimise our time so that we can do more, achieve more and have fun while we’re doing it? There are all sorts of ways to become more efficient, and they work well, but sometimes we have a health issue that holds us down.  Most everyone has something of this nature at some point in their lives.

This post is about Temporomandibular Joint Disorder and having a short upper lip. Jaw joint problems seem to be fairly common and the symptoms that can arise from jaw misalignment are many. Yet  it’s rarely considered by doctors or dentists as being a possible cause for a disconcertingly large array of otherwise unexplained symptoms.

Last February during a routine dental checkup a dentist alerted me to the fact that I had jaw problems. Consequently during this last year I’ve had to learn about it and how to deal with it. I’m hoping that this post might be helpful to others in raising awareness of this condition. I’m not a medical doctor so I can’t advise in a medical capacity.

It turns out that I’ve had jaw problems all my life, with severe symptoms to go along with it. I had braces from the age of 7 until I was 16 or 17 years old. I’ve had regular dental checkups throughout my life and then I had braces reapplied seven years ago for a couple of years to attempt to stop my teeth moving around so much and having teeth pain.

No one ever mentioned the possibility that the jaw could be out of alignment, nor did they ever mention that having a short upper lip could cause problems. I’ve had to live with intense pain and many other side-effects from this most of my life. With each passing year, it was getting harder to keep going and I was beginning to lose hope of ever accomplishing my goals, so I’m very grateful for the timing of the dentist I went to see earlier this year.

I’m sharing here what I’ve learned in the hope that by raising awareness of the difficulties that can arise through simple jaw misalignment, perhaps it can save others from going through years of misery.  Below, I briefly describe the effects of TMD, having a short upper lip and how I’ve managed to fix these problems for myself.  If you have no interest in this topic, you could stop reading at this point.

Temporomandibular joint disorder – that’s a real mouthful.  It’s often abreviated to TMD or TMJ disorder. Whatever you call it, it can be a huge problem.  What it boils down to is that for some reason the jaw joint is not working the way it should.

There are many things that can cause the joint to become misaligned: an injury to the joint itself, poor posture, an accident, injury to the spine, the need for orthotics, orthodentistry performed without consideration of jaw alignment with respect to the teeth,…and perhaps some combination of these things.  This means that it can be tricky to find out what’s causing the problem.

Symptoms resulting from jaw misalignment can also vary from person to person, both in severity and in the number of symptoms.  It can cause havoc with a person’s ability to function, and when the symptoms are significant, it can even result in a person being essentially disabled.  If the source of the problem is identified, that person can  recover and the symptoms can be eliminated.

A brief description of some of the symptoms that can occur:  severe migraine-type headache pretty much most of the time, eye pain and blurred vision, light sensitivity, jaw pain, tooth pain, inability to swallow properly, ear pain without infection, severe constant dizziness, nausea, neck and shoulder muscle strain resulting in inability to move neck, sore throat, difficulty breathing with asthma-like symptoms, inability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, teeth clenching, teeth grinding,…the list goes on.

It’s much more complicated than this, and this isn’t a technical medical explanation, but if the symptoms are bad enough the scenario can go something like this: to cope with the pain and these symptoms, the body pumps high levels of adrenaline; in the long-term the adrenal glands eventually become fatigued; this affects the production of other hormones in the body and before you know it, you’ve got allergies, digestion problems, the body can’t clear toxins effectively, chemical sensitivity can develop, energy levels hit rock bottom and it’s virtually impossible to exercise.

Then if you go to a doctor, they typically can’t figure out what’s causing the problem because the body is actually healthy, so no test will uncover anything inherently wrong.  And there you are at a dead end, always in pain, unable to sleep, not knowing why, but unable to live.  Well, that might sound rather grim, but it really is.  What does a person do then?

I was super lucky.  Last February I went to the dentist for a routine checkup. He took an interest in me because he specialises in TMD and recognised just by looking at me that I could have a jaw problem.

It has been a hard path trying to understand the problem and figure out what to do about it.  There were many days when it seemed nothing could successfully be done about it.

I learned where my lower jaw needs to be positioned relative to the upper jaw, in order for me to not experience the TMD symptoms.  In my case the upper front teeth and lower front teeth coincide in position. If I bring my teeth together in a normal bite, then the lower jaw is too far back.

Each person has a different jaw alignment position. Usually it coincides with the bite placement of the teeth, which makes things easy. If it doesn’t, then it’s important to find the correct alignment.  Of course, it’s possible to have injury inside the jaw joint and then this would need to have proper attention.

The goal is to align the jaw correctly and relax the facial muscles. In my case, I have a further complication in that I have a very short upper lip. There’s an 8 mm gap between my upper and lower lips when they’re at rest.  This is a real problem. It means that the facial muscles can never be properly relaxed. Closing the mouth under these circumstances requires constant muscle work, pushing the lower lip up to meet the upper lip. This is like constantly holding your arm out horizontally.  Eventually you’d experience difficulties trying to hold that arm out all the time; it could cause cramps in the arm and back muscles and who knows where else. The jaw joint and all of its attendant ligaments and muscles is the most complicated in the body.

This year I have learned not to attempt to close my mouth. But this still isn’t enough in itself.  The muscles can’t relax because they have nothing to rest on. This means that the face muscles still contract and tense all the time.  In my case, this tensing of the muscles in the face is enough to pull my lower jaw backwards relative to the upper jaw, the face muscles constrict and tighten, resulting in TMD and all its symptoms.

Another complication that can occur is that if the muscle contraction is sufficient to cause nasal constriction then it can become difficult to breathe freely through the nose, especially if the mouth is open. This encourages mouth breathing, which causes the tongue to assume a tensed position, which in turn can cause further tensing of the facial muscles.  All of this serves as a feedback loop, one effect aggravating another. If the nose has been broken through injury in the past it’s well worth getting it checked to see if there is a deviated septum or some obstruction that needs correcting.

In my situation, the problem that needed solving was: what to do about having a short upper lip.  If orthodentist treatment is started at an early enough age, then the growth of the bone above the front teeth and below the nose can be halted. I believe this is why I was given orthodental treatment at such an early age, but we moved country every couple of years and maybe something got lost in the treatment along the way.

As an adult, it’s possible to operate to shorten that bone, but there’s controversy as to how well this works.  I’ve chosen not to take that route.

I found something else that works.  I had taken up playing the trumpet a few years ago, and when I asked my dentist if it was ok for me to play it, he encouraged me to do so, saying it might help to strengthen the facial muscles. Playing the trumpet regularly through the day really helped remove many of the symptoms to a workable level.

Pulling the upper lip low to play the trumpet caused it to press against the upper gums, even though the trumpet mouthpiece was placed very lightly on my face. The shortness of the lip requires that I really need to pull it down much more than would be necessary with a more normal length upper lip. Eventually this caused discomfort to the gums. I decided to take a break from playing the trumpet to rest them.

Within a week of not playing the trumpet I sank deeply back into the TMD symptoms and had lost the improved productivity that I had maintained for much of this last year. It was a devastating loss.

Soprano Saxophone

Desperate to find another solution so that I could at least function and have a life, I looked at all the other wind instruments I might be able to play, with less need to pull the lower lip down so far.  I decided to try the saxophone.  It works to control some of the muscle and TMD problems even better than the trumpet did.

In time though, as I lost the strength of the trumpet muscles through not playing the trumpet at all, I discovered that it’s also necessary for me to continue playing the trumpet regularly to maintain what it does for the facial muscles. So now I play both instruments and the result allows me to function well and live an active, normal productive life. I sleep well and have loads of energy. The balance of how much time playing, how often, and which instrument, is something I work out by trial and error for the most beneficial results.

I’ve tried to think of some way to invent something that could be put between my lips to prop them in a similar manner to having the lips contact with one another like they would in a normal mouth.  The complications of how to shape such an object and how to keep it in position have thwarted me in pursuing it.  It would be costly and I don’t have access to a workshop to create such a device. But I think it could solve the problem without the need to play an instrument to help the muscles.

Tenor Saxophone

It’s hard to believe that playing the trumpet and saxophone regularly through the day could reduce the symptoms to nearly nothing, but it does. If I go beyond much more than a couple of  hours without playing, I’m soon reminded by the tightening of the facial muscles, jaw pain, a blocked nose and a deep headache for starters. Playing the trumpet and saxophone is an odd solution, and certainly not a perfect solution, but it’s enabling me to live life fully and with energy.

I’ve experienced TMD difficulties all of my life without knowing the cause. Each person will likely have a different set of methods to solve their problem, but if relating my experience here can be of help in some way to you or someone you know, that would be great.

This seems to be the time when ebook readers and very small portable computers are starting to really catch on, not to mention all the ways it’s possible to read content on smart phones.

I recently read an article, The End of Book Publishing As We Know It, on Michael Hyatt’s blog.  In  the article there’s a video showing a slim, portable, color-format reading device Time Inc has developed for magazine content.  It allows for audio, video and normal text print content to be accessed very easily all in one place at the touch of a finger.

Time (no pun intended) will tell just how much these new devices and combinations of media will affect the conventional publishing industry, but it is already true that the publishing industry is experiencing tremendous changes.

There are many new opportunities available for the individual in this evolving technical environment.  Software applications at relatively low prices have made it possible for individuals to learn how to accomplish things that used to only be possible for experts with very costly equipment.  One such area is the ability to print a book using, for example, Adobe InDesign or even one of the applications made freely available by online book printers such as Blurb.

The tricky part that comes with having direct access to performing these highly specialised tasks is that in order to create quality products there’s a great deal for an individual to learn.  It’s crucial to assess which facets will be important to forwarding one’s own work.  There are a variety of reasons for limiting just how much you intend trying to learn to do:

1. learning a little of everything results in doing most things in a mediocre manner because there just isn’t enough time to truly develop more than two or three things fully and deeply
2. time spent on one thing means less time spent on another which could be more important in achieving your goal
3. you might end up spending much more time than you intended doing something you really don’t enjoy very much

So it’s really important to pick and choose what to learn, finding the balance that allows you to move forward with your goals, but doesn’t drain too much from your primary ambition and passion.

My primary passion is stories.  I think I could do without many things, but not stories, and stories with pictures, well, I just think that’s the ultimate.  I love movies, but have no interest in being directly involved in the film industry.  So I’ve been concentrating on understanding what it is about the visual elements that go into art that make it successfully communicative, and what elements are important to a story to make it really interesting and exciting.

I’m still experimenting with just how my passion will express itself in my art.  To try to get closer to this, I’ve been delving more deeply into color theory, composition, technique, and all types of art from fine art to illustration, cartoons, animation — everything I can set eyes on.  I’ve experimented with digital painting, and more watercolor and egg tempera painting techniques.

I have also been studying writing, visual storytelling and story-boarding, and am writing a couple of fiction stories to see where they go. For the more practical side of how to communicate the art, and possibly stories, during the last year I have completed courses in all of the Adobe Creative Suite applications.  My year’s subscription with Total Training will end on January 1st and so this spurred me to complete the InDesign and Illustrator courses during these last few weeks.  I have also studied web design, print design, composition, layout, and a little about typography.

So that’s it for the heavy-duty studying for me, thank goodness!  Now I need to develop my artwork so that it expresses my passion – and I’m not quite sure what that is yet in terms of style or subject.  I think it might be bound up in expectation, and if I can let that loose, my style should just be there. When I write I have no expectation and my writing style seems to be there just simple and unsophisticated, for better or worse.  I haven’t yet reached that with the art.

So here’s to the New Year, bringing new discoveries and challenges.  If you have any comments on what you think it’s important to learn in today’s environment, and/or if you have any advice on reaching your own style, I’d love to hear them.

Wheat almost ready to harvest

It has been a long time since the last post here on DweezelJazz Art blog.  There have been a combination of things that made this so.  What started it was that we lost our Internet connection for six weeks.  Our Internet Service Provider, who will remain nameless here, upgraded their service, but unfortunately they lost our connection altogether and never found it again!  So we switched providers.  In France it takes a long time for a new provider to set up the line. But we’ve been back online for a few weeks now and everything is working very nicely.

Green Summer Countryside

We’ve had a very unusual summer here – it has rained so much that everything has stayed green and it looks like the high Alps in summertime.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  The air has been cleaned every few days by another downpour and lots of wind, but we’ve also had a lot of bright, shiny sunshine.  It has been idyllic.

Corn Field

We’ve watched and heard the sparrows nesting in the eaves of our house.  The swallows and house martins, also living around here, are cleaning up all of the mosquitoes in the area – we haven’t been bitten once at home!  The swallows are fantastic to watch as they swoop gracefully back and forth, nearly colliding with the walls when they get close to the house.  The roosters and chickens in the large open field next to us have been announcing themselves loudly and are a real joy to watch as they bound and run across the tall grass, always busy.

Jet D'Eau Geneva Switzerland

It has also been an eventful summer, as a result of something that happened way back in February.  I went to the dentist to have a fixed orthodontic retainer glued back on. (Visits to the dentist have taken me frequently into Geneva and so I’ve witnessed summer in town too, as you can see in the photos.)  This simple goal turned out to be far more involved than I at first thought.  The dentist took one look at me, asked me all about any symptoms I experienced and then he announced that he thought he might be able to largely remove those symptoms:  migraines, nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, extreme fatigue, difficulty breathing, lung discomfort, neck and back muscle cramps, lack of sleep, and so on.

And, to my utmost amazement, in addition to the removal of these symptoms, I found that I no longer had reactions to being around perfumes, cleaning products and other toxic chemicals I have hitherto found increasingly difficult to endure.  I didn’t rush out to put these things in my environment, but it was fabulous not to feel like someone had laid out kryptonite around me every time I went out somewhere.

Place du Bourg de Four, Old Town Geneva, Switzerland

I’ve lived with these difficulties all my life and had come to accept them as part of life, at least my life.  So it has been with amazement that I’ve discovered that these myriad symptoms are indeed entirely due to jaw misalignment.  I’ve learned a tremendous amount about this in the last months;  it hasn’t been easy and has taken a huge amount of thinking and observing on my part, all the while trying to learn fast enough so as not to fall back into the abyss of pain-ridden exhaustion.  Life rarely offers a magic bullet.  My situation isn’t totally resolved and I’m still trying to find out if there’s a long-term solution to correct the jaw alignment.

Parc des Bastions, Geneva, Switzerland

The great thing is that along the way, there have been times during the last months that I’ve been the most pain-free I’ve ever been – in fact, I didn’t know what it was like to be that pain-free – didn’t know what it was like to have energy, and long, deep nights of sleep.  Fantastic!  So I took advantage of it!

Looking up at back of Old Town Geneva from opposite the Parc des Bastions

In June I finished the Total Training Online Course on Adobe Dreamweaver, and within a couple of weeks I designed a completely new look for DweezelJazz Art site, with new galleries and descriptive content for the paintings.

Then I worked on a number of drawings for paintings in egg tempera, inked them…

Inked drawings ready to glue onto the tempered glass.

and then glued them onto tempered glass.

Drawings ready to be underpainted, and then prepped for painting with egg tempera.

As I was doing this, and also preparing some drawings for painting in watercolor, Tony came up with a brilliant idea: what about creating a book of paintings?  Well, I have wanted to do something of that kind for a long time, dreaming about it.  I decided to bite the bullet.  I chose the subject, in fact, if I survive the first book, I plan to do a series of them: each book dedicated to a town and area in the Pays de Gex, France / Geneva, Switzerland area.

I started with a plan to fill a 60-page book, large format.  So I created a storyboard for the entire book, including image sizes and placement.

Storyboard for the first book.

Then I started drawing and drawing and drawing.

A drawing for the book.

I’m including scenes in towns and in the countryside around them, so that the book will give the feel of the place as a whole.

This is what I call a "cow bus".

Quite often at the beginning of summer, you can see tractors hauling a trailer full of cows out to the fields, and again in fall taking them back to the warmth of the barns.  It almost seems like the cows are being transported to school or something, so I call it a ‘cow bus’.

I’ve completed 64 drawings and have 18 left to do.  Then, all I have to do is paint them! I’ll paint them probably using a combination of ink and watercolor.  And of course add text to accompany the paintings.

Sunflower

So, if you’ve managed to read this entire post and have reached this far: thank you!  Thank you for reading this blog, and if you’ve been a reader for some time, thank you for continuing to read DweezelJazz Art blog.  I don’t post as often as I used to because I’ve had to prioritize the precious commodity of time, but I do plan to continue posting and have some photos of pretty places and countryside ready for future posts.  I’m very happy if you find it interesting and fun.  Life is full of beautiful things, to cherish and enjoy, and I try to share a little of that here.

This sunflower, for example,  just wouldn’t pose correctly for the photo – I reckon it was a bit drunk out there in the fresh air – couldn’t focus on having it’s photo taken!  But it is beautiful, nonetheless.

My niece, Elspeth Addicott, is going to Uganda this summer to spend six months teaching saxophone, flute, clarinet, and

Elspeth and her sister busking

oboe at a music school. She is just finishing her degree at the Royal Welsh College of Music and will be able to share the knowledge she gained during her four years there. She’s exceptionally talented at communicating and getting along well with all types of people, of all ages. I’m always very impressed by her skills.

British Airways has set up a competition in which they’ll give away free tickets to outstanding applicants. They include comments and ratings left by the general public in their assessment of the applicant.

I’m writing this post to ask if you could take just a few moments before the application end date,  March 29th, to go to Elspeth’s page on the British Airways site to rate and leave a comment on her application. In her own words: “BA are offering free flights to winners of their competition, which seeing as mine would be £500-£600, would be really really useful!”

Thank you,
cheers,
Nat

Dan Gilbert, Harvard professor, gives explanation for slow response to danger of climate change and environmental damage.

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Pollution and smog, along with increasingly strong cleaning agents, represent a growing health risk to the general population.

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A car air filter is very effective to reduce the amount of pollution we inhale while traveling in a car.

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Some chemically toxic situations are unavoidable: industrial scale oil spills, large fires, such as the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy; but knowledge of the dangers enables us to make better informed decisions and choices.

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The importance of being well-informed about products we buy and use. The power of consumer choice.

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Advice I found useful from David Allen’s book: “Getting Things Done”. Some things in our lives are beyond our control, but understanding what is within our control and taking steps to optimize our efforts helps us to reach our goals.

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