JT:

I hope you find success in your trismus and continued therapy. I found it interesting when you mentioned the exposed bone you had. I have what I thought was a splinter left from having a tooth pulled last year, but my ENT now says he thinks its part of my jaw bone. Any idea about what happened with your mandible to have the bone exposed?

I do have a therabite which I used only occassionally. This was given to me by one of our regular OCF memebers whose husband didnt need it. When I first got it, my mouth wasnt able to open wide enough to even get it in without the pads on it. I have since progressed to being able to use it occassionally. My teeth are very loose so I must be extreemly careful not to make them worse, I fear they will fall right out.

I have found my greatest success came from the help of my physical therapist. She had me use the tongue depressors in a different way due to my dental issues. She would make a stack of 3 and then slide them one by one into the center of the stack. This was not put directly into my mouth but was placed on each side of my mouth. Its not easy to explain, but it would be like I had a stack sitting on eash side of my mouth lying on my side teeth. This way there wasnt any pressure on my front loose teeth at all and my jaw still got stretched.

In 2 weeks I have appointments to see 2 specialists who hopefully will be able to help me. Sometimes it gets to me when I think about it too much. Mostly I feel very fortunate to be here and if this is as good as I get then Im still way ahead of the game.

Please keep in touch with your progress and experiences. There arent alot of us with these problems here and you have done wonderfully with the therabite. Best of luck to you.