Tealady,

try to exhaust every possible medical (involving drugs) and therapeutic (involving any practice like acupuncture, herbal medicine, chiropractic, etc.) before you choose to go to surgery. I say this as an r.N. Who read one unforgettable story about a woman who had some kind of surgery for her tmj; it left her with a mouth that had no ability to close! I'm not sure if she was left pain-free, though I remember she was so embarrassed about her appearance that she did everything she could not to be seen in public with her mouth hanging wide open.



Steve

I have had tmj since I was 16. It kept getting worse. I have been on liquid/soft food diets, pills, had tmj splints made, and nothing helped. So I had my first surgery a bilateral artrocentesis done. It's where they go in with a giant needle and extract fluid from the tmj. Relief was only for 11 months. I then had an arthrosopic surgery done bilaterally, second. That only lasted for a year. My last surgery i've had was a little over a year ago and it was a bilateral reconstrutive jaw surgery. Its the best surgery i've had. I now have hardly any pain and when I do it's only for a day or two here and there. I am still working on being able to move my mouth from left to right, and I can no longer bite with my front teeth together. I have very little nerve damage--only along my temples where I can't feel anything anymore.

If I had it all to do again, i'd do it. For i'm no longer in bed for days,and my jaws are no longer falling out of place by bending my head over. It has helped me a great deal.