VUE

At the height of the pandemic, I don't believe it's hyperbolic to say that you wouldn't have caught me dead at a single unnecessary doctor's appointment. That's why in July of last year, when a sharp pain shot through my jaw, I ignored it. For the next three months, the pain persisted, making it difficult to chew, brush my teeth or — God forbid — yawn. Until one day in September, I woke up and could barely open my mouth to speak. Forced to finally confront the problem, I was at an emergency dentist appointment later that day, where I learned I'd developed stress induced TMJ from grinding my teeth at night. The answer? I needed to chill out and wear a night guard. But the months spent ignoring the problem exacerbated the damage to my jaw, leaving remnants of pain that I can still feel nearly a year later. I'm not the only person who delayed medical care during the pandemic. In June of 2020 — the same month my jaw pain started — the CDC estimated that 41 percent of U.S. adults had avoided medical care. 12 percent of those cases involved medical emergencies. The other 29 percent of people skipped their annual visits and screenings. These patients missed a year of mammograms, cervical exams, prostate exams, and colonoscopies. In other words, they bypassed all the fail safes that typically detect medical conditions in their earliest and most treatable stages. Christine Weiselberg is the administrative director for the Leslie Simon Breast Care and Cytodiagnosis Center at Englewood Health. Weiselberg Dr. Jacquelyn Copeland, breast radiologist at Englewood Health V U E N J .C O M 127

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