Valerie, Thanks for the info. I actually went to a physical therapist who treated patients with TMJ a lot in the year and 1/2 or so following my treatment. She could get my mouht to open as wide in one hour as it would take me one day of seven different stretching sessions with my therabite--soemtimes a millimeter or two further. But overall my mouth still never got beyond about 20 mm. And that was 1.5 to two years ago (I had to stop going to her as my insurance only paid a fraction of what she charged).

I may try going back to her this summer, but I don't think that physical therapy alone is really going to get my mouth open wide enough for the dental treatments I really need for my back teeth. The material I found about coronoidectomies on the web made it sound like they were quite successful overall.

My main questions that I am not sure I got the full skivvy on from my doc are this
1. Is there any chance that this surgeryw ill leave me unable to fully SHUT my mouth? Although I no longer teach in the classroom much, because my voice wears out, I do still do a couple of classes that don't require that i talk all the time and I also have a part time adminsitrator function at my college and I think the impression one gives if they walk around with their mouth hanging open would be a real professional barrier for me-and radaition has cause enough of those in other ways already!
2. Are there any other kinds of serious complications (other than the obvious that the surgical site could get infected) that I should know about.

Do you have any information about either of those things?

Nelie