About two weeks ago the oral surgeon told me that jaw replacement surgery (Mandibular resecting) is now inevitable. His first thought was that it would need to happen sooner, not later. But after he did a more thorough examination and reviewed the CT scan I had done in April, he is now predicting that I have 6 months to 2 years before this will become necessary.
The ORN is still progressing, and the scan showed more dead bone tissue in that area--so I'll have more events like the most recent one at the beach. Right now the daily pain level is manageable without regular meds, but every once in a while I need something for breakthrough pain. The bigger concern is a growing area of numbness that means the nerve on that side has become involved--that's what's making the resecting inevitable.
You can Google 'mandibular resecting' to see what this will entail. There are two options--but both start with taking out about four inches of my left jaw. Option one is to replace it with a titanium plate. Option two is to take out a piece of my shin bone, sculpt it to the shape of the removed bone, and then graft that in as my new jaw. This option is more desirable because the new jaw will have its own blood supply...and I won't set off alerts at the airport when I go through TSA security. So, unless things change, my shin bone WILL be connected to my jaw bone sometime in the future.
I'll spare you the rest of the details on this procedure until "inevitable" becomes "imminent." Now knowing that it will happen, we have our fingers crossed that it can wait until we come back from New Zealand in April. We will be living there for 10 weeks while I am a visiting professor at the University of Canterbury. In the meantime I am monitoring my symptoms closely and being careful not to have an accident that could fracture my deteriorated left jaw. If that were to happen, "inevitable" would become "immediate."
We'll keep you posted.
Mike
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