Elaine's Story

My TMJD was caused in an accident in which I was broadsided by someone traveling at an excessive rate of speed. I was in a '74 four-wheel drive pickup (heavy duty). I received a side whiplash, and the back window also popped out and hit me in the back of the head. Both vehicles were totaled, to say the least. I was lucky. Broken bones and other injuries healed, but that is where my problems with TMJD started.

I went to several different doctors for two years. I tried physical therapy, splint therapy, and other forms of treatment, but I had such headaches (or so I thought) and also popping from a dislocated disc, that my OS decided the only alternative was surgery. I went for it.

The first surgery was in 1987, and the purpose was to put the disc back in place. I did okay until my jaw locked. The second surgery, in 1989, was to remove all of the scar tissue that built up. Once that was removed I had some function again. I did fine for a while. When I say "fine" I mean that the pain was tolerable.

About a year later, I started having headaches that would make me throw up. This made me realize the headaches that I had to begin with were nothing compared to what I was dealing this time. During this time I switched doctors. The headaches went on until 1997, until the pain finally got the best of me and I agreed to another surgery.

The third surgery was when I had the Christensen implant. At that time the doctor told me that there was so much scar tissue built up that it looked like I had the jaw of a 90-year-old, and he didn't know how I had functioned at all. There was no disc at all, and he wondered if my previous doctor had taken it out with scar tissue in the previous surgery and didn't tell me.

It is now March of 2000 and after reading some of the other histories on tmjd.com, I consider myself lucky. During the period between my second and third surgeries, at times I wished I could die. The pain was like a grinding knife in my ear, and I would throw up for hours at a time until it would ease up. Usually that was tough because I couldn't keep anything down long enough to help the pain ease up.

I am better since the implant. I still have the days when it tears me inside out, but not as often, and that is the only good thing - it's not as often. Am I better than if I would have never had the surgery at all? NO! Anybody considering surgery better think again, it is not a cure by any means. I wish I could have found information like I have found in Steven & Linsey's forum before ever agreeing to the first surgery. Once you have the first one, you might as well plan on more, because by then you hurt so bad that you feel you have no choice. If I had it to do over again, nobody would touch me. Hope this will make the ones of you that haven't been suckered in yet to think twice.

~Elaine
regruel@mc.net

© tmjd.com
Disclaimer | Contact Info | Donate | TMJD Dreambook