Life Update and 1st TMJ Treatment!
Hello! I feel like I was blogging my heart out over the weekend just full of ideas and catching up on new outfits and such, but now this week has gone by and I haven’t been on here at all! And a lot has happened! So, I decided to take a little hiatus from Instagram/social media for a little bit because I feel like it was eating up so much of my time with my kids and I was feeling really guilty about that. During this past school year, I was trying so hard to get this blog off of the ground and get the ball rolling, plan outfits, have content to share, take photos, edit those photos, figure out how to link items from said photos, (not to mention write for the more serious/emotional parts of the blog which takes a lot of brain power), all while trying to remote teach Holly during her first year of kindergarten and I feel like I finally hit a wall and completely burned myself out.
So, here we are.
I’ve had a few fellow bloggers tell me they had to learn to pace themselves when they first started because it’s marathon, not a sprint, but I’ve also had a few that said they grew their blog by posting everyday, and any instagram algorithm would tell you the same…but that route just wasn’t working for me and I burned out quick. Boo. If i’m honest, though, even though my reasons for wanting to take a break were largely due to wanting to be more intentional with my time with my kids, I still struggled to actually do it and get to this place, because I know that soon all of my IG analytics and insights will drop to zero. zip. zilch. nada. nothing while I’m gone, and my pride didn’t want to accept that after working so hard trying to get a teensy bit on the map. BUT, time is the most valuable thing, and I don’t want to look back on these days when my kids were young and think of how much I missed and how much I regret not giving them attention because I was so busy chasing instagram algorithms. Wow. I sound so shallow when I hear it out loud, lol, but when you’re trying to build something solely online in the internet world, those things really hold a lot of weight! Anyway, I’m gonna try to swallow my pride and get over myself and be okay with starting over when I get back on because summer is the best time of year and I love being outside all day with the kids! We get up in the morning, get our swimsuits on and just jam all day to reggae and country music and soak in the sun. Summers are so beautiful in Colorado, but they’re short, so you gotta enjoy them while you can!
In other news, I had my first TMJ appointment on Tuesday and it went well! I’m still feeling some pain today but that was to be expected. We did two injections, one on each side in the joint of the jaw and it was moderately painful, but tolerable. It honestly hurt worse a few hours afterwards when I tried to eat something. I felt a relief of pain and some numbing for the first hour and a half, and then when I had to open my jaw to eat, was when the pain set it. It felt very much like pins and needles and stung pretty bad for the rest of the evening, but only on the left side of my face which surprised me quite a bit. Typically I have more pain and problems on the right side, it feels more clenched and tight in the morning when I wake up and I can feel popping and clicking sometimes too, so the fact that the left side - which usually doesn’t give me problems - had more lingering pain really threw me off! It’s only been two days, but so far, I think it is really helping the right joint. I haven’t been experiencing severe ear pain or sore teeth in the morning for the last few days so that’s a relief in itself. We combined dry needling of the upper back and occipital muscles with the lidocaine injections in the same appointment to target more of the neck and shoulder area, but we didn’t do the jaw like we usually do.
Shown - LEFT(or TOP) + MIDDLE: TPI’s. Trigger Point Injections of lidocaine for TMJ pain management, scar tissue and swelling reduction. RIGHT (or BOTTOM): Dry needling in the upper traps (we also did the occipital muscles and joint adjustment) for tension release, muscle lubrication and increased blood flow. This was my first injection treatment but I have been getting Trigger Point Dry Needling for a few years to manage migraines (they used to be reallyyyy bad). I get this done by my chiropractor, Dr. Welling, at Arvada Sport and Spine Group! I go back next week for another treatment of TPI’s so I will give an update then. I also have a full highlight on my Instagram page if you missed it! (@meagan.robinson)
XO,
Meg