Picture: JOCELYN NICKELS
IMAGINE waking up one morning and barely being able to move your mouth, struggling to eat and even talk without excruciating pain.
That was the reality for Mount Gambier mother Tamara Minge around five years ago.
Little did she know this would be the start of what seemed like a continuous downward spiral of medical appointments, scans and surgeries.
“My jaw had clicked my whole life, but it was painless and a dentist had said previously that it was nothing to worry about,” she said.
“Until one morning I woke up and I physically could only open my mouth maybe a finger width – the pain was unbearable.”
Initially told that the discs had slipped out of place, Ms Minge began to see a specialist in Adelaide who gave her exercises to help them recapture.
“Everything he told me to do didn’t work and after re-visiting him for a day procedure things got worse,” she said.
“It started crunching when I ate or even spoke, it was absolutely horrible, you could hear it from the next room.”
From there began another round of scans and after changing to a specialist in Melbourne, Ms Minge spent hours travelling to and from the Blue Lake city trying to resolve what seemed like an impossible problem.
“By that stage I just wanted someone to fix it, I still hadn’t had that much help or any answers,” she said.
“The scans were showing different results and I was getting quite frustrated.
“Until finally I found out I had really severe arthritis in the right jaw joint – it was past the point of reconstruction, there was no healthy bone to work with.
“I was relieved to finally have answers, but at the same time I was really scared – it was overwhelming.”
In 2013, Ms Minge was fitted with a custom-made, titanium right jaw joint which was supposed to fix all her problems and enable her to once again live a normal life.
However, the nightmare had only just begun and within months things started to take a turn for the worst.
“I started getting these little itchy dots on my face and breakouts so I saw a dermatologist who suggested I have skin patch testing,” Ms Minge said.
“Out of the 53 possible allergens I had taped to my back for a few days, I reacted to just two – nickel and cobalt.”
Already aware of her allergy to nickel, Ms Minge said she made this clear to the surgeon prior to surgery and even suggested allergy testing at the time.
“When I queried it he said it wasn’t necessary so I put all my trust in him because he does it all the time and I had faith it would be okay,” she said.
“I knew the joint was made out of titanium and had a couple of other metals in there such as cobalt, but I didn’t realise there was nickel and the surgeon never mentioned it.
“I also didn’t know about my allergy to cobalt so all of this could have been avoided if the testing was done before the surgery.”
A short time later, Ms Minge’s left jaw also began to deteriorate at a fast pace and she was soon fitted with a pure titanium joint with no nickel or cobalt.
“That one has been fantastic and I have had no problems with it since then – I know now what the right side should feel like,” she said.
However, unfortunately in the last couple of months Ms Minge’s right jaw has started to make the terrible crunching noise once again and she is now in desperate need of another replacement.
“There is a lot of literature out there that shows being exposed to metal allergies and heavy metals could trigger auto immune disease and lots of other horrible things, so I really need to get it out,” she said.
“I have started to get lots of eye pain pressure and vision problems in my right eye and terrible headaches – I think it is all connected to the allergy.”
As a single mother who has already had many weeks away from work, Ms Minge is struggling to secure the finances on her own to undergo the third replacement.
“I will have to have one surgery to take it out, then have my jaw wired shut for a minimum of six weeks and then another surgery to put the new joint in,” she said.
“So far each surgery has been a minimum of $10,000 plus accommodation and having to get my daughter looked after.”
Ms Minge said spending so much time away from her daughter had added to the stress of her many appointments and procedures.
“After surgery you have to keep talking to a minimum to let it heal so that has really affected how I can interact with her,” she said.
“The pain changes each day, but sometime by the end of the day I will just sit on the couch with a heat pack on it because it is hurting so much.
“Even reading a story to my daughter hurts – I’d love to be able to do that without thinking about the pain.”
A few weeks ago, Ms Minge’s close friend took it upon herself to raise funds for the surgery by creating a Go Fund Me page.
“It has been amazing – I am blown away with how many thoughtful and generous people there are out there,” Ms Minge said.
“It’s the nicest feeling to have these people I have never even met donating money or sending messages.”
To date around $10,000 has been raised for Ms Minge’s surgery with a goal of $15,000 to help cover travel and accommodation expenses.
“I am so grateful for the support I have received at this stage – I don’t know when the surgery will happen, but it is a lot closer than I thought it would be and that is a massive positive,” Ms Minge said.
Visit www.gofundme.com/tamaras-third-jaw-replacement to donate towards Ms Minge’s surgery.
