TMJ Surgery procedure
There are a few different procedures that are employed in surgery for TMJ. Every one of them has different degree of invasiveness. Every one of the procedures has been explained below.
Discectomy: This is performed when the cartilage disk is badly damaged and is unable to soften the temporomandibular joint. This involves removal of the disk material and letting the tissue grow naturally and fill up the joint space. Thus, the scar tissue will scale back the friction between two joint bones rubbing against one another. Like disk repositioning surgery, disectomy is carried out under general anesthesia and roughly need a few hours. A short hospital stay is necessary. The TMJ surgery recovery time may fluctuate from a few weeks to one or two months.
Articular Eminence Recontouring: This procedure is performed on articular eminence or the socket portion of joint. The socket is, sometimes, too deep which in its turn put lots of stress on the ball of the joint and leads to agony and swelling. For this reason, the surgeon would shorten the articular eminence and smoothen it up with special tools to ease off the pressure from the ball. This is mostly performed to fix major cases of trauma to the joint. Often, it’s a part of the TMJ replacement surgery.
TMJ Replacement Surgery: When the joint is so badly damaged, it is beyond repair, then it’s got to be removed surgically and replaced with a newer one. The replacement might be total or partial, dependent on the disposition of the joint. During the surgery, the damaged portion of the ball and socket of the joint is removed first and then replaced with the harvest bone from the ribs or any other parts of the body.
In a few cases, it is replaced with metal prosthetics. This is a major surgery concerning lots of hazards and is availed as a last resort when all other TMJ treatment possibilities have failed. The recovery time for this surgery is much longer. The utilization of jaw may start after a month of the surgery but the patient need more time to get accustomed with the just replaced part.
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