Anyone ever get a wisdom tooth post implant to resolve TMJ / TMD? (teeth, pain)

[BlakeJones]

Just curious, TMJ / TMD can be triggered by wisdom tooth extraction.

Would a post "fill in the gap" and resolve the issue?

[Parnassia]

I doubt one extraction on its own would trigger TMJ. It is more complex than one tooth. It might however exacerbate an existing problem with your jaw and your bite.

[Daffodil_fields]

Do you grind your teeth at night? A dentist would be able to tell by looking at your teeth.

[golgi1]

I doubt that filling the gap with a foreign object wll resolve a TMJ (or any other) issue.

The gap isn't likely to be what is causing the issue, assuming no infection.

I propose that the TMJ issue is caused by change / damage to the nerves, caused by the extraction itself.

Which in turn changed resting muscle contraction and bloodflow in the face.

Try stretching your facial nerves and muscles by holding your mouth as far open as you can for a minute or two at a time.

At the same time that your mouth is open, try to find and massage any facial nerves that may be under supplied with blood. I've had the most luck with my temporalis nerve, which is counter-intuitive given its distance from the jaw. But which makes sense given the issue with my eyes (later described).

Seek out a facial nerve diagram and try to find the nerves while your mouth is open. The nerves will be more sensitive and the massage will be more effective with your jaw open. Feeling intense pain when the nerve (or muscle surrounding it) is massaged with normal presssure is a good sign that you've found an under-supplied nerve. The pain of the massage should reduce over a period of months, as the nerve begins to recover.

This should help resolve the TMJ and increase blood flow.

Do this on a daily basis, as much as you can remember to. The recovery effect will be cumulative over time.

Look for significant improvement after a couple of months.

Remember to do maintenance stretching after it begins to feel better.

Anti-inflammatory / blood-thinning OTC meds, like Excedrin, can also help on occassion / in conjunction with stretching.

In my opinion, wisdom tooth extraction as a pre-emptive procedure is wreckless and over-prescribed.

Surgeries of that sort should not be performed until there is true medical problem, as there can often be problems caused by the surgery and that won't resolve over the course of a lifetime.

There are a lot of doctors, and even "not medical doctors", ready to prescribe and cut for money.

The public should be more aware of the fact that surgeries of this type often aren't mandatory and that there are serious potential downsides.

I had four infected "gaps" after pre-emptive wisdom tooth extraction, undertaken after my parents were talked into it but at which time there was no actual problem other than the existence of the teeth.

This quadruple infection was the most painful experience of my life, for which I was underprescribed painkillers (tylenol with codeine instead of the stronger stuff that should have been prescribed) by "not a doctor" and which was treated with antibiotic gauze.

I believe that uncecessary wisdom tooth extraction permanently damaged nerves in my face, which led to bloodflow issues on the right side of my face and later in my eyes . The issue is felt as migraine, both ocular and otherwise. This will be a lifelong issue for me. It's been a life-altering disability.

Stretching and massaging my facial muscles (and nerves) helps to reduce the symptoms and manage the condition. I only discovered this twenty years into having the condition.

Excessive muscle contraction isn't necessarily felt at the place of the dysfunction (at the site of the facial nerve, for example) until the primary location of the dysfunction is "awoken" with stretching and massage (at which point it will likely be painful at the site of the dysfuntion).

For me the pain was felt at some distance away from the nerve and muscle dysfunction, in my eyes and brain. Only much later in the pathology progression was it felt in my jaw, at which point I looked to facial nerve and muscle intervention in line with TMJ exercises. Which worked to relieve the total symptomology, to a degree.

The other major issue is dealing with the potential for infection in the gap, both felt and undiagnosed, over a lifetime.

Be sure that the surgeon removed all of the tooth. Remaining dead tooth under the gum will rot and be a source of infection that won't heal until everything is removed.

That infection will also affect your nerves and bloodflow. Ten years after I had my wisdom teeth removed, I had to get opened back up again to get the rest of the dead material ground out (along with the infection that was there).