Rita....Did your dr. tell you to work on opening your jaw after your surgery? As you know, I had a similar surgery, though not quite as extensive by a tooth or two...but my surgery did remove all of the maxilla to the rear and to the front including the canine tooth, leaving all four incisors. It also removed about 1/3 of my hard palate. So.....everything back in that rear corner has been insulted and/or injured.

I still exercise my jaw many times a day by opening as wide as possible, and sometimes assisting by hand. I can open nearly three fingers' worth now, but if I had not exercised, I might have been permanently scarred down to a very small opening. Before you presume that this is caused by your previous TMJ, please check with your surgeon and ask for specific exercise methods for this problem. You might need a Therabite. There are lots of threads on the forum about opening issues.

ALSO...after my surgery, my ear was stopped up (and was numb on the outside....bothersome!...has resolved, thankfully.) This is because, again, nerves have been insulted/damaged way back there near the eustachean tube, and it doesn't work properly then. I was told that mine might come back or might not, in which case they would install PE tubes. I took OTC Sudafed for several months, and it gradually opened up, and now my ear functions normally.

But yes, those problems are probably related to your surgery and not necessarily to your previous TMJ....not helped by it, of course, but maybe not caused by it....makes more sense that it was caused by your surgery.

XO--C