Mum went into nursing home today

Skye

Registered User
Aug 29, 2006
17,000
0
SW Scotland
Hi Elspeth

It's always traumatic when a loved one has to go into care, whether it's hospital or NH. It sounds as if your mum is accepting her new home. All you have to do now is accept it yourself!

You are lucky that your mum is not asking to come home, but in a way that is just as hard, because you are the one doing the grieving. You're bound to feel strange, living in your mum's house with her no longer there.

Just give it time. Provided your mum continues to he settled, you'll soon begin to accept.

I'm glad you're beginning to feel better yourself, with the relief of your pain.

Love,
 

jeanierec

Registered User
May 7, 2007
121
0
north yorkshire
Hi Elspeth

I`m so sorry for all you are going through . The reason I`m writing is because you`ve obviously had major problems in the past with your jaw but are you sure that this is more of the same or could it be stress.

I only ask ( and in no way am I minimizing your pain ) but since Mum and I started on this journey I`ve had an endoscopy because of terrible pain ( and in fact have oesophagtis ) but which is no longer causing me a problem , really bad backache and for the last week horrendous toothache that seemed to be in 4 different teeth , as soon as my current worries cleared up so did the toothache , how sad if i`d gone to the dentist and had them all taken out !

I guess I`m just trying to say that we can`t underestimate the bodies ability to manifest stress in physical pain as a get out clause in case we explode with whatever is going on in our heads and hearts.

Thinking of you

Jeanie x
 

hawaii50

Registered User
Hi Jeannie

You are quite right to believe stress is at the root of all this. My original jaw problem was caused from severely clenching my teeth when I was in a high stress job so much so that the cartiledge in my jaw came out and I needed surgery to stitch it back in!

I have spent years getting my bite fixed through moving my teeth which in turn moves my jaw. I was successfully managing this until my dad died had a stroke and subsequently died three years ago and I went through traumatic pain such as I am sufferring at the moment - again stress induced - that knocked me back quite a bit.

I then had all the restructuring finished almost two years ago with the exception of the lower right hand side of my mouth where I lost two teeth due to the braces crushing them over the three years I had braces. So I now have a temporary bridge spanning two gaps and anchored on the two teeth on either side. I have obviously started to clench again due to what we have been going through with mum - the last four weeks were particularly stressful as she has deteriorated substantially due to a few TIA's.

The dentist thinks I have an infected root on one of the anchor teeth because of the intensity of the pain but I am not convinced of that - he gave me antibiotics on Wendesday and said if the tooth was infected the pain should clear up - I was at the doctor's on Friday evening asking for strong painkillers and the pain hasn't shifted at all - confirming to me that it still TMJ problems (temporal mandibular joint). I know I need to completely relax in order for this(stress related) to be sorted. Unfortunately the temporary bridge I have needs to be replaced by implanted teeth as my teeth are not strong enough to anchor the bridge over two gaps - so I am really not going to get a chance to heal properly until that is done - and as Margarita quite rightly said they are expensive - at least £2,000 per tooth. So I don't have that sort of cash to spare at the moment so need to make do with the bridge until I do.

Like you said Jeannie, our body has a great ability to manifest all sorts of symptoms through stress or the power of our minds. My mum used to be alergic to all sorts of things and now that she has forgotten what she is alergic to she no longer has an alergic reaction - every now and again it will come into her mind that she is alergic to something - and guess what she is alergic.

I didn't realize how exhausted I was until now - the adrenelin doesn't need to flow any more wondering how to cope with mum - so I feel like a deflated baloon - my husband and I are just sitting looking at each other wondering what to do next! Hopefully that will pass soon and we can start to focus on our lives again.

Looking after someone with AD has such a knock on effect on the carers' health - so look out for stress related symptoms!!

Thanks for your reply Jeannie - I know if you have sufferred from stress related pain you know what I am going through.

Elspeth
 

Staff online

Forum statistics

Threads
138,128
Messages
1,993,223
Members
89,789
Latest member
Anne Paterson