The Weekend Update/Jaw Manipulation

Well, this was the week we met with the oral surgeon in Brighton for a "jaw manipulation."

Ryan was sedated in the office and the doctor manipulated his jaw so he could try to find the cause of his limited mouth opening ( 15mm.) Previous CT scans do not show a bony issue, so it was assumed that there is scar tissue. Scar tissue will not show up in CT scans or xrays, but they did rule out a bony cause from the pictures. The doctor's goal was to find a more exact location of  the blockage during this manipulation. Also,  the scar tissue could possibly be loosened by the Dr. while Ryan was sedated. Worst case scenario, the scar tissue would need to be removed surgically by opening the TMJ joint. Working on the joint is rather risky. A local surgeon told us he was not comfortable performing surgery on the joint, which is why we were back in Brigton this week.

So, the good news is that it looks as if the TMJ joint will not have to be opened. Yay! But, the bad news is that his jaw needs to be re-broken. Yep, you read correctly. Re-broken! Yeah, I had to tell Ryan about 4 times before he realized I wasn't kidding. His bite is off and when he opens his mouth (or tries to :) everything shifts to the left, which may be the source of our problem. This may not completely fix the problem, but according to the Dr., it is the first step. Regardless of the limited opening, he said if we don't fix the bite it could lead to problems with the TMJ joint in the future.

We don't have a date set for this yet. The Dr. in Brighton is going to talk with the local surgeon to see if he is willing to do this part (the same local surgeon that did not want to open the joint.) If the local surgeon is willing to do this much then we can have the surgery done close to home. Otherwise, we'll have it done in Brighton. Having it done in Midland would be more convenient for an overnight hospital stay and weekly follow-up visits.

To those of you who know my husband, you probably know he can be a bit umm....lippy at times. You can imagine the wisecracks we've heard about the line-up of people wanting to help with the breaking of his jaw! Ryan said he'll be selling the honors to the highest bidder on e-bay!!

Please pray for guidance for us and for the doctors!

Thank you!