Hey breezy .... Listen im a 25 year old male that is scared to death of the dentist. I had my wisdom teeth pulled about 7 months ago and still to this day do not know how I did it! I do not have tmj and my recovery was quick as can be, I was 100% fine the night of the procedure. What you have to remember is its different for everybody.

My wife just had her's done friday. She has it way worse then me and she does have tmj, she did swell more than me, but that is not always the case with tmj, her's were just more impacted then mine. It totally depends on the person, just as long as the dentist know you have tmj, you will be fine.

Good luck

Hi

i also suffer from tmj and had three of my wisdom teeth removed last week.

First of all, it is definitely a good idea to have general anaesthetic with tmj. I've had similar experiences to you at the dentist with just routine treatment so having wisdom teeth out under local anaesthetic is not a good bet! It's a good idea to let the surgeon and anaesthesiologist know you have tmj before the operation, but surgeons will be gentle with the way they position your jaw in theatre regardless.

I had a chat with my surgeon before the op about implications for my tmj. Clearly, the operation will cause it to flare up in the short term given the length of time the jaw is kept open during surgery, but your tmj should ease back to "normal" within a few weeks (one bad point is that you can't wear your splint at night for the first couple of weeks). The key point he emphasised is that the severity of pain/swelling is mainly determined by the specifics of the wisdom teeth themselves - so a heavily impacted wisdom tooth will cause more pain/swelling after the operation (as a general rule lower wisdom teeth tend to be worse than the upper teeth)

as yours have not fully erupted they may take a little longer to remove and lead to a bit more swelling than normal, but given you are quite young the roots of the teeth won't be very deep so should cause less stress to your jaw.

I had a good experience after the operation in that I was able to get normal movement back into my jaw within a week (although it was still a bit stiff and sore - similar to after having a filling, under local, at a dentist).

So just to sum up your quick q's:

1) severity of swelling is mainly down to the specific attributes of the wisdom tooth (how deep/impacted it is)

2) unfortunately it will a bit, in the short-term, given the length of time you have your mouth open in theatre. But this should calm down after a few weeks.

3) my swelling went down within a week, although your gums will inevitably still feel sore and a little swollen.

4) definitely - plus after they put you to sleep, they will inject your mouth local anaesthetic (as though you were having it done by your regular dentist) which means they do not have to put you asleep for too long so the effects of the general anaesthetic (and the immediate pain after the op) won't be so bad.

Hope this helps and let me know if you have any other queries!

Matt

Hi, my name is Kaylie and I'm 17. I just got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled out today and I have a TMJ.

I told the dentists or whatever you want to call them about my TMJ and I think they did a really good job not bothering it while extracting my wisdom teeth. I have limited mouth opening and a really small mouth, seeing that I'm a really tiny girl of around 5" tall.

I got an IV and i was out before i even realized it. I was fine for most of the day, my bottom left hurt though, they had to drill into the bone to get it out. I started to get a swollen jaw at around 8/9pm which would be around 12 hours after getting my wisdoms extracted.

I've been keeping a frozen bag of peas on my left side to try to reduce swelling; too bad the bag wouldn't stay frozen longer....

I've been wearing my night time retainer to stop me from clenching because boy oh BOY does it hurt a lot when you clench after getting your wisdom teeth out.

Hopefully the swelling on my left will die down soon so my jaw doesn't hurt so much... it hurts to open and talk... so i choose not too unless im getting my milkshake =]

Question: What do they do to your jaw when they have you sedated?
do they actually manipulate the jaw and take it out of it's place? I will need to have my wisdom teeth removed and have tmj so i have same concerns as others here on this forum

They generally have to dislocate your jaw (at least they did with mine) in order to extract your teeth, and the duration of the surgery depends on how far your teeth have broken through, if at all.

Not meaning to scare you further, but it was the removal of my wisdom teeth that caused my TMJ. My jaw didn't go back into place properly and has been semi-dislocated ever since.

If you are experiencing continual pain afterwards, do not let your dentist brush it off as a weakend jaw due to the surgery, as mine did.

Also keeping in mind that many, many, many people have had this done and never had any problems or thought of it again.

I wish you the best of luck.
Melanie.

yeah im pretty sure getting my wisdom teeth extracted is what caused my tmj as well

Um, what is tmj?

TMJ - temporomandibular joint - the joint that holds your lower jaw to your skull. When mentioning TMJ we usually mean TMJ disorder (TMJD)