Has anyone out there had surgery on their jaw due to TMJ and would you recommend!
Question:
Has anyone out there had surgery on their jaw due to TMJ and would you recommend it?
My dentist told me I have TMJ and I suffer from headaches, stiff neck, biting my lip when I am chewing my food. She made me a hard plastic impression of my teeth to wear at bedtime but it does'nt seem to help. Also, there is a popping on the right side of my jaw which happens involuntarily. I am getting fed up with all these problems.
Answers:
In the situation as you describe it, the cure (surgery) is worse than the disease. Most people feel worse off afterwords.
The popping you are probably stuck with. If you fix the headaches and stiff neck, the lip biting will mostly go away.
The plastic that you wear at night helps protect against grinding. The next step is an occlusal equilibration. Any prematurities fixed. If some are found, the cure can seem like magic. So you wait for a while to see if that works. The next step is to make a plastic appliance which you wear all the time except when eating (Some people can eat with them). It changes where the pressure is in centric. With luck, you headaches mostly go away, your stiff neck definitely goes away. All dentists learn to do equilibrations. Some go into it more that others. Not all dentists make bite changing appliances. I wish this was a simple problem, but it is not.