Will splint therapy work for displaced disc without reduction - TMJ Disorder -TemporoMandibular Joint Message Board

ltanik77 · 08-20-2003, 01:17 AM

Hi,
I ve been diagnosed with arteriorly displaced discs which do not come back to position even when the mouth closes. Does anyone know if splint therapy wud work ?
Also what wud be the total cost of such therapy . I'm in Portland , OR. Thanks for any advise.

NeedANewHead · 08-20-2003, 08:15 AM

I would like to know the answer to this also.
I also have severe deterioration to both of my joints.
Will splint therapy help me? What do I do first??
Due to ins. issues my surgery is OUT. I guess its not meant to happen. I have mixed feelings about it.
I KNOW I cannot live with this pain forever. I would rather die first. So I have to pursue other forms of treatment. I know for sure the NTI didnt work. It made my jaw pain much worse.
I would really appreciate if someone could give me some advice on what to do next.

cally22 · 08-20-2003, 12:33 PM

Hi, this is cally22, I'm speaking specifically on my experience. I was diagnosed with an arteriorly displaced disk without reduction, trismus, myofascial pain disorder, mallocclussion, and a few other things about four years ago. My treatment started out with muscle relaxents, anti-inflamtories, pain med, etc. Which didn't work. I then had between 8-10 steroid injections, they releived pain some but they didn't help the current condition.They then proceded to bounce me back and forth between dentist, and two different oral surgeons. In this time period I had two different bite splints made. One was aa soft plastic, the other hard. These I found were not that beneficial to me. At this point I was still having problems; in fact my problems had gotten worse, so my one oral surgeon had sent me up to another oral surgeon who was supposedly the best of the best in our area.

Now at this point I was probably at my worst thus far, so they did a procedure where they put me asleep, manipulated my jaw found out what was wrong once again, and then decided to do an arthroplastic surgery. ( surgery basically where they reposition disk, and clean out the joint) I got a little better for a little while. But in about 6-8 months the problems started coming back so they did the procedure where they put me to sleep, and they decided I needed another surgery this time a menisectomy(discectomy)I went through that surgery, and now a little over a year later I'm still having problems.

Though let me tell you someting the problems that I speak of today are not what they were four years ago. But they are still here, and I still ahve to deal with it.My tmj is still a big part of my life. Four years ago my jaw locked for the first time and I could not chew food , and i still cannot to this day because of limited openning, and other problems.

I'm not sure what you will get out of all of this but I hope you will get something. And please remember that just because my experience with tmj has been awful doesn't mean yours will. Good luck!!! Cally22

ltanik77 · 08-20-2003, 06:54 PM

Thanks Cally.It definitley looks like SPLINT might be better than any kind of surgery ..Hope your pain reduces in future.. Thanks.

ltanik77 · 08-20-2003, 06:54 PM

Thanks Cally.It definitley looks like SPLINT might be better than any kind of surgery ..Hope your pain reduces in future.. Thanks.