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HI, for me the worst symptons are the chronic pain and the pins and needles/ tingling 24hours a day in my face due to a nerve reaction following surgery.
ive had about 6 or 7 TMJ surgeries, the last one being a total joint replacement using TMJ concepts two weeks ago.
If only i could go back to the time when fitting a big mac in my mouth was the only problem i had..
and im 22 :(

Michelle, thanks for the welcome, very glad to hear your symptons have been getting better over time. why is it you need tjr at present? is it because of the pain or degenerative arthritis like myself. i could only fit my index and middlefinger in my mouth for 3 years, now i can only firt my index finger although i suppose it is still early days for me to judge on the tjr surgery as its only been 2 weeks. however out the post op few week revovery period has found to be very painful for myself. a few days i had bad pain in the joint itself, and most recently the pain has moved to the end of the implant right on my jaw line. this is bad at the moment and am thinking to make my follow up appointment a lot sooner than planned with my surgeon.

i really do hope after a few weeks i will see soome drastic changes in pain and ROM, although if you ask me right now, i would definately go back a few surgeries ago and call it a day.
My swelling has gone down a lot but still very obvious, i can also feel the implant if i gently press on my jawline, it is very promenent at the moment and am only hoping it will settle down over time. i have found it very hard to find people that i am able to ask the questions i want to know, even if it was silly questions like where will the scars be on my face, is the implant magnetic, how do insert the drain tube through my skin. I have graphic pictures, mri scans, and i even have actual footage of my Minesectomy surgery to remove the disc, my surgeon wanted to film it as i was a special case of his. some people cant even look at the photos let alone watch a video. i however am very interested in everything there is to know about tmj.
I would like to answer any of your questions, of course just being my opinion, so feel free to ask me anything.

Dean

Hi,
I could  eat solid foods before the tjr however sometimes it was extremely painful and would last a few days if i over stretched it. which is easy to do when you are really hungry.
i dont think there was one particular thing that made me decide on the tjr, more a collection of everything. the pain, mouth opening, muscle spasms, arthritis and i think simply being aware that my mandible and tempporal bones had fused together and would never be the same again.

My surgeon has given me some anti-depressants called amitryptiline on a tempory basis, not because i am depressed but because a side effect of these tablets are to stop nerve pain. i am a bit weary of these as ive been told they can be addictive and alter your state of mind which would not be good for me.

All i would say is ask as many different people as many questions as you can, do a lot of reading, and dont make a decision out of nowhere. perhaps in a few months i will have a better understanding of TMJ concepts, not really fair for me judge during the post op recovery.

Dean