Brian,

thanks for posting this. it really reaffirms my decision as being the right one. I kew you had been involved in that industry, so hearing the same thing from the PROVIDER of these appliances makes us all, my wife most importantly, much more comfortable with the decision to leave things alone.

I think we get so caught up in "doing Something, anything" during our battles with the Beast, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that on occassion the best course of action is no action at all.

I know things will undoubtedly worsen over time, but then...I'm getting older too and other things are doing the same thing. the bonus here is having to chance to actually wear out body parts instead of having to remove them prematurely to continue to live.
[quote=Brian Hill]I think it is a great call to skip the TMJ replacement. I used to be in the medical device / implantable device market before cancer. These things, even in perfect situations can have issues. The articular disc between the nomal condyle and the fossa over many years can wear a hole in it, and that's what keeps the two bones from rubbing against each other. It usually starts with a popping, but eventually when the hole is big enough the bones chaffing against each other becomes painful. It can (and will) eventually change people's bite, or how the cusps and fossas of their teeth mesh (interdigitate) with each other. The longer you can deal with this the better in my mind. [/quote]