It was just a stiff neck. Then it spread to my whole body
As told to Faigy Peritzman
I have a quirky personality; weird things just happen to me. Like when I lost my voice in camp. Normal, except my voice was nowhere to be found for months. Throughout 12th grade, I’d have my friends answer for me when the teachers took attendance.
I finally had a video endoscopy done, which showed that my vocal cords had no structural damage, so the ENT suggested vocal therapy. A few weeks in, my voice returned. Weird. But that was only the beginning.
A few days later I woke up with intense pain in my jaw — classic TMJ. We went to an oral surgeon and got an X-ray, which showed that nothing was wrong. The next day the pain had left my jaw, but it seemed to have relocated. I now had a major kink in the left side of my neck.
The sequence of issues with my voice, jaw, and now my neck was odd. But I could handle a stiff neck. I made sure to deal with it, because I’d be heading off to Israel for seminary in a couple of months. I went to a chiropractor and to a masseuse, but my neck was stubborn (they use the term stiff-necked for a reason!). I flew off to Israel with two oversized bags and a very stiff neck.
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