splint: first impression

I hate the splint. I absolutely can NOT stand it. I feel like I'm suffocating with it in, because it forces my jaw closed at night. It's huge - I look like a football player. It's my retainer as well, now, and my teeth HURT like crazy - it's weird. Most likely because I'm trying to work my way out of the splint at night and it's hard to get my teeth in and out. I have to wear my clear retainers during the day for a few hours because I'm not getting my 8 hours in due to spitting it out so often (which is really difficult to remove, I'm not sure how I'm getting out of it!)

My lower jaw is pulled quite a bit forward to get it in the splint - so when I take it out my jaw is confused about where to sit. This morning my front teeth were bumping like mad, during lunch today I saw a legitimate large overbite, which scares the crap out of me.

I have a headache, I'm exhausted from waking up every hour or so either suffocating, searching for it because I've managed to spit it out, or from my teeth and jaw hurting.

I'm going to give it the 10 days he asked - it's a new thing, and my jaw doesn't like new things. I want this to work - I want the rest of my jaw pain to go away and I want my range of motion to improve and I want to eat normally - but this sucks.

Boo. I had high hopes for this splint.