Isobelj

I saw a new maxillo facial surgeon today who was dramaticially more informative and helpful than the previous one whom I've seen three times. I'd like to go into more detail but am going away for two days and a bit rushed right now, however I did want to ask the group about something he told me.
He confirmed what I felt but what the other surgeon did not tell me despite looking at the same tomograms, my right condoyle is higher than the left (due to my molars becoming shorter on the right in Jan), and the space there between disc and fosse is 'thin', 2mm smaller than it is on the left where he said it looks completely normal (I think he said that the normal space between condoyle and fosse is 4mm). From this and feeling my joints he thinks the right disc is displaced (the annoying thing is that I believe this has happened since I began seeing that first surgeon who failed to help me), it goes into place when my mouth is wide open but slips (forward I think he said) at other times. There is no fraying he said of the disc but also he told me that totally putting it back isn't possible (without surgery which he didn't advise and which I don't want), what he thinks I can achieve is that the 'posterior tissue' to the disc will harden and effectively replace the disc. He thinks I need to wear a splint and then afterwards heighten the too short molars to give more space between condoyle and fosse on the right, this is what I've believed all along, and I'm glad to hear it confirmed, but also unhappily previous blundering doctors have not helped me prevent relatively recent (within the last ten weeks, before that both discs were in place) displacement from happening. Well, I would like to go more into this later, I'm aghast at how wrong some 'professionals' can be in proposing treatment and making (or not even getting to the point of making any) diagnosis.

What I wanted to know could anyone tell me more re this posterior to the disc tissue? I haven't read/heard anything about this so far, I thought just 'decompressing' the condoyle could enable a slipped forward disc to move back, so I'm disconcerted and a bit sad, I do want to get everything back to normal, not to feel 'damaged', even if the 'posterior tissue' can work as well as the original dics.

One interesting thing, the surgeon himself asked me to feel his discs as he opened his mouth, to my surprise I could hear loud clicking, he then told me he actually had tmj as a teenager in result of orthodontics, and his discs became dispaced and now on both sides he has this 'posterior tissue' acting as discs or transformed (naturally) to disc like material (sorry my terminology is so vague, this is such a new thing to me), he has no pain at all and can move his jaw freely, eat anything etc. I'd guess he's now about in his mid thirties. I felt this explained his genuiness and apparant real understanding as I explained my own symptoms to him, but I'm still unhappy to think my right disc won't ever be 'normal' again. Maybe I am dramatising this overly.