Wisdom Teeth Suck! Surgery Happening Soon

[ZenOfAnger]

Lol. Were you in that video?

[SuperGuido]

Nope.

I would NEVER miss the chance to stab a downed opponent with a bayonet.

[ZenOfAnger]

Hello again.



A week has almost passed since my operation, and the news is in:



NO MORE HEADACHES!!!!!! :chewy: :laughing6



More info here.



Thanks to everybody who posted here and supported me.



Sincerely,

ZoA.





P.S.

To Lily:

You should really consider getting yours taken out as well. My operation went fine, and I'm sure you getting yours out will be more beneficial than anything else.

Who knows. You may even find out they are causing problems you had no idea they could.
Regardless, thanks for your support.


Peace.

[danniboi07]

Knowing what you went through and how it must feel now, I have no doubt in my mind that you are, indeed, doing that chewbacca dance :chewy:

Glad to hear no more headaches:icon_chee

[omoplatypus]

congrats. i had headaches (NOTHING as bad as yours) before my teeth came out. a week after the surgery, and the swelling went down, not a problem. i have never had a headache that felt like those since.

now, study study study. i got faith in you being able to work it off to your great uncle.

[matt.m]

Hello everybody.



It's been a while since I last made a thread or posted, and I have decided it's about time to make a new post. Now I am going to share some news with everyone: On the 27th of January, I am going to undergo surgery to remove all 4 of my impacted wisdom teeth.

This may not seem like big news to some of you, because they're just teeth and a lot of people get them removed, but hear me out. I've got a story to tell about why this is big news for me.

For the past few years of my life, I have suffered from chronic migraine headaches which started around the middle of my 8th grade school year. The first few were real nasty; I had them when I woke up, got tunnel vision around an hour after school started, which was followed by vomiting and my mom picking me up and taking me home so I could recover after two or three days of rest. Now they did not happen too often, as I only seemed to get them in the fall and spring, but as my high school career began, they slowly got worse.

Freshmen year started out well. While there I met a few friends and started a relationship with a very lovely lady which lasted until the end of my junior year. Everything was fine for the first week or so, and then it happened. I woke up one day and had a headache so bad I seriously could not get out of bed! Unlike the ones before, I had no vomiting, but the degree of pain was about three times worse and I felt completely debilitated, where the ones before just made me feel somewhat woozy and unbalanced.

Since it was fall, I thought it was just due to that; my other migraines before were in the fall and spring so i thought this would be no different and by the end of October I would be fine throughout winter until April when I would have them again. I was wrong.

Now not only did they not go away, but I had them throughout the year! This seriously hurt my attendance and my grades for that matter, and the headaches ended up landing me in summer school for 2 of my classes. I have never been a bad student, and up until my freshmen year, I had always done well in each subject. With my attendance so low, however, it was a real bitch to keep up with subjects.

Since the migraines seemed to happen all the time, my mom took me to the doctor's during the winter to find out the problem. My doctor prescribed me some medicine, but to no effect. Afterward, we went back and he recommended us to see a specialist. He too prescribed medicine that did not work and I was still left miserable.

In sophomore year it was the same story, but at a different school, since I transferred to another that had less of a workload (my high school in freshmen year was very work- heavy compared to most schools in my district). The problem only got worse, as I missed more days and had summer school once again.

During that year I tried more medicines, all to no avail which really pissed me off. My mom was really pissed as well. With the more days I missed, the more and more my mom thought it to be psychological. During the winter of my sophomore year, I went to see a therapist. While there I did get emotional help to deal with some other issues, but it did not solve my migraines.

My mom tried again in March and signed me up for a group therapy session for teens. It turned out that I had no real psychological issues, regardless of the fact that the group was more designed for teen drug/alcohol addicts.



Fast forward up to May 2008.

After trying everything else under the sun (CAT scans, vitamins, codeine, etc.), My mom and I finally decided to try a chiropractor/acupuncturist. After some needle sessions, he asked for us to get an x-ray of my head and back to bring for him so he could asses whether I needed a realignment or not. After getting the x-rays, the chiropractor saw that some of my vertebrates were slightly unaligned, but discovered something none of us imagined. The x-ray of my head took in a profile angle revealed that my incoming wisdom teeth on the bottom were turned to the side!

Since he was no dentist, he told us we should one right away. A few weeks later, chance had it that my yearly cleaning was at hand. When we brought him the news and the x-ray he told us to immediately go to a dental specialist for a better x-ray. When we did so in August, an x-ray set at a different angle to show all of my teeth and not just a profile picture like the last one, revealed all 4 of them turned sideways.

The specialist explained that their turned position indicates that they were impacted. Also the x-ray revealed one of the teeth had a strange bubble looking object behind it. The specialist told us that this was most likely a cyst or abscess. After hearing the news we told him how I had had migraine issues since the 8th grade and how they greatly affected my life. He said that the wisdom teeth and the cyst could be the culprit to the migraine's being so severe, and that surgery could help to alleviate or even get rid of the pain.

The only bad news was that the operation would cost about $1400. My mom contacted our insurance provider and described the situation. Unfortunately our plan did not cover any of the cost, and when she tried to find out why she was told that the migraines were not a life threatening illness, so therefore the operation was not covered.
The operation was put off until further notice.

At the beginning of this year my mom was visited by her uncle, my great uncle, during the holiday break. After talking to him about our dilemma, he agreed to pay for it in full. The only catch being that I get my high school diploma/G.E.D. and continue to get college courses.

Due to the migraines, I had actually been un-enrolled from my school due to missing so many days in a row in sophomore year. It happened again in senior year and I finally had enough. I eventually had to drop school in October, because I cloud not attend on a regular basis. I am a pretty bright guy though, but I just can't keep up since I would miss 5 days or more in a row, no joke.

After the surgery, I plan to take up online course to finish my high school education through Mizzou. After that, I will get more hours at my work, since right now I work a hodge-podge schedule due the headaches, and will take up martial arts again at a different school since I can afford it due to my personal finance.

So you can now see why this operation is such a big deal to me. It is the only option I have left to turn to for a cure to my pain and debilitation. It just has to work out, because after all these years, it's the only logical reason to why they happen so often and so severe. I really hope it all works out, because I really want to return to a normal life, and also so I can return to the martial arts.

I never really told anyone here that I had them before, because I didn't want to seem like I was a sympathy-whore trying to get people to feel bad for me. But now that I have a date to the surgery and a real answer to getting rid of my pain, I felt it proper to tell you all, as I am somewhat phobic of being rendered unconscious and wanted to get some type of reassurance and words of encouragement from others.


Thank you all for hearing me out, and I hope to become a regular poster again soon.
Wish me the best of luck!

Sincerely,

ZenOfAnger, aka Ryan R.

Ryan is a great student that has had back luck. I was his active Judo coach and couldn't be happier with his work ethic. I myself am a disabled combat veteran so I understand hardship and pain. Ryan always worked very hard, I will be his coach again if he wishes without problem.

[ZenOfAnger]

Thanks for the kind words, Mr. Morton.


I hope to be back in the martial arts soon, preferably concentrating on judo over other arts.
The last time I checked, you only had classes once a week. I myself would prefer to at least be able to go three times a week and will soon look for a school after I get settled back into a sustainable routine. If you ever get the chance to have more days open at the school for judo, please let me know.

I am also planning to try other arts, such as muay thai, bjj (though from my experience you seem to dislike bjj) and perhaps boxing to get a feel as what art(s) truly fit me.


That's all down the road, however, and I plan to take the time to recover fully from surgery, and then get my education "on the mat", or so to speak, before really getting into martial arts again.


Thanks again to everybody, and I hope to see you again, Matt.

Sincerely,

ZoA.

[matt.m]

I never said I did or didn't like Brazilian JiuJitsu. I said that Helio Gracie learned from a man that learned from a Japanese National Champion. I also said that BJJ is good for the specialization of Judo ground work.

Furthermore I respect BJJ as a TMA since it is a derivative of Judo, however I don't like some of the personallities behind the scenes of BJJ. The thing I don't like about BJJ is the fact that they didn't pay homage to Judo and have many good techniques but different terminology for them. Afterall ude garuma and ude garami are the kimora and americana. I am just set in my ways of "If it was one way when you learned it then it is still that way."

[ZenOfAnger]

I never said I did or didn't like Brazilian JiuJitsu. I said that Helio Gracie learned from a man that learned from a Japanese National Champion. I also said that BJJ is good for the specialization of Judo ground work.

Furthermore I respect BJJ as a TMA since it is a derivative of Judo, however I don't like some of the personallities behind the scenes of BJJ. The thing I don't like about BJJ is the fact that they didn't pay homage to Judo and have many good techniques but different terminology for them. Afterall ude garuma and ude garami are the kimora and americana. I am just set in my ways of "If it was one way when you learned it then it is still that way."

I think you would be interested in Mr. Tripp's article.

I am sorry that I was mistaken. I just remember one instance where you seemed to be ridiculing BJJ as an art during class, because you said something about it being judo without being judo, or something real weird like that. Regardless, I am glad you are not the type to bash on other arts, just because they are from different schools, or have different terminology, though I do agree BJJ is derived from judo.


In the link above, there is discussion on why BJJ is called jiu-jitsu and not judo.

One idea is that Maeda said what he did was jiu-jitsu to the Gracie's, was in order to avoid being "thrown out" (no pun intended) of the kodokan for using judo for prize-fighting, which to my knowledge Prof. Kano greatly objected to. (Kimura was kicked out for this, I believe)

Another idea is that at the time, judo and jiu-jitsu were used interchangeably to mean judo, since a standard romanization of the word had not properly come into place.

Remember; in different parts of the world, people use different words to mean the same thing. (think "chips" as opposed to "french fries") It may just have been that they always called judo "jiu-jitsu" and never were familiarized with the japanese terms.

Anyways, I don't really want to talk about it anymore as this has digressed from my original apology for misunderstanding you.


Have a good week, Matt.


ZoA.