Well, the procedure was not all that bad. I went under general anesthesia and he made just a couple of small holes near the joint and went in with a very small arthroscopic camera. It was then that he could see exactly what was going on in there and was not too happy with it. I had severe adhesive disease and the discs were damaged and the joint was degenerating. So he cleaned the adhesions off the discs with a micodebrider and put some liquid steroid medication in there and may have put the disc in a better place if it had slid out a bit. Then there were only a few stitches. You cannot tell anything happened at all.

But no - there was no wiring shut of anything but it did hurt when I woke up and I had a lot of swelling in the area for a few days and had to have ice on it and take major pain killers for it. I felt pretty lousy as by now my immune system is shot in certain ways and for me, to undergo general, usually means about two months of not feeling well and being exhausted. Other people might fare better. They also had me go right into TMJ physical thereapy for about six weeks twice a week. I hated that but it had to be done - hated the physical therapist putting her hands in my mouth all the time and moving my jaw. I did this whole thing twice and the last surgery seemed to help though I still have problems.

My bite though is back in order. It was quite a bit off for a while there.

I still worry about the integrity of the TMJ on the right and the doctor telling me that there is a possiblity that I might need bilateral joint replacements some day. That really scares me. But I think the next step he said, would be to remove the damaged discs if they continued to cause problems and restriction by reforming scar tissue. So far I have been okay. It just took two surgeries to feel better.

In my case though, I had a blow to my head and side whiplash so it was a traumatic injury and therefore more severe, though many other things can cause enormous problems for folks with TMJ pain.

Today I have been having pain and I started to feel nervous about it and then realized I have been eating too many raw almonds. So I cannot chew anything really hard or crunchy or chewy and I am not supposed to because everytime I do that, I cause friction in the joint and more wear and tear. But yes, I can chew a lot better in general, I don't seem to need the splint anymore, but I try to eat things that are sort of soft. I became a big fan of smoothies.

It is important to have a good oral surgeon. The one I had is Steven B. Aragon in Englewood, Colorado. I could not find much on him other than this one gal's story on how great she thought he was. She had something much worse than TMJ it sounds like, but she has good suggestions and she is inspiring:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:hFJ98nDkcMQJ:www.smbs.buffalo.edu/wcmpi/NYS...n&ie=UTF-8


But overall, surgery should be avoided if at all possible. Dr. A is not in a big hurry to just get in there and work without a very good reason, so that is good. Also, I had a very good dentist who specializes in TMJ - Dr. Charles Lee in Englewood as well. He was so very nice to me and did everything he could to keep me away from Dr. Aragon.

If you are really having problems and if there is anyway you could move to the Denver area and have insurance cover it or your own money to cover good care, these two would be your best bet. Hopefully you would not need surgery.

I found this article too and since I am starting to practice yoga as it helps my other pain issues, I might try these asanas that are good for TMJ supposedly.

www.yogajournal.com/practice/754_1.cfm

Good luck. Let me know if you need anything.