Hi Donna,

Sorry it took me so long to reply. We had to dig out from under 2 feet of snow! Got a little off track.

Anyway, yes, Heather is on Vioxx. 12.5 mg once a day. Vioxx is mainly an arthritis med to ease joint pain. I guess since the trismus is basically a joint problem (jaw joint locking up), the surgeon figured it might help.

I really can't say for sure if it is helping or not because they increased her Oxycodone at the same time. She does have less pain, but it might be due solely to the Oxycodone. The Vioxx supposedly should make it less painful for her to stretch her jaw. If your issue is mostly with the pain in the jaw joint, I would think it's possible Vioxx might help.

For people that need to increase the mouth opening, I can tell you that when she used the Therabite appliance after her surgery, it helped a lot. Before she started her RAD, she had significantly increased her mouth opening. Unfortunately, she had so many problems with infections and such that she quit using the Therabite. It was just too painful on top of all the other pain. Now she can't use it because she can't open her mouth far enough to get it between her teeth. I'm trying to get her to try using tongue depressors or popsicle sticks to get it open enough to get the Therabite in again.

I'm afraid she is going to need surgery to open things up. Does anyone have any info on the surgery for trismus? The surgeon has mentioned both cutting the scar tissue and cutting the muscle (tendon?) at the top of the jaw joint. I'm wondering about complications and long term effects.

Hope this info helped.
Rosie