21 and having total joint replacemts 3 years after TMJ diagnosis

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I started having jaw pain in December 2014. Bad joint pain and headaches. Saw my dentist when I came home from college as my parents saw how bad things were. Dentist put me on muscle relaxers and pain medication to try and get things to calm down and get me some relief. Tried a few splints. Had multiple MRIs done all showing displaced disks and bony changes to my condyles. I was also referred to a physical therapist specializing in craniofacial and tmj. I saw her for 6+ months before seeing and OMFS. Upon seeing the surgeon we discussed from imaging and how sever my pain was with no inprovemnt to do arthrocentesis. I did not get relief and within 5 days we knew the disk was not going to recapture so in August of 2015 I underwent open joint surgery on my left tmj to have a mitek anchor placed and to smooth the. One. My disk was completely in front of my condyle and very misshapen and would have never reduced on its own. That surgery orovedied relief and I was off of pain medication after 2 ish weeks. 3 months later my right tmj began to have severe pain so we did an arthrocentesis to remove some bone chips and hopefully put the disk in the right place. I got some relief but it didn't last for long. I was diagnosed with idopathic condylar resorption and osteoarthritis of my tmj. I continued in physical therapy until September 2016 when I had open joint surgery bilaterally to remove all the damaged to my disks and bone chips were removed along with the smoothed my condyles because my surgeon could literally press on the bone it was so soft and damaged. We went into this surgery knowing it could work or that bilateral TJR would be in my future. We hoped this would provide a few years of relief but sadly the degeneration comtinued at a very fast rate and in January of 2017 we started the total joint replacement process with TMJ concepts. It was a long process and my surgery was cancelled three times due to the company being so behind. By the time I had surgery July,12,2017 I had a 4 mm opening was on full liquids and was on oxycodone and fentynal patch for he severe pain. 

 

My right joint we found out had completely ankylosed and fused they fractured it and spent a long time in surgery chipping bone away so they could cut the condyle off correctly. Today a month later I am doing better. I have a 23 mm opining and not much pain on my left side. A lot was done to my right jaw during the surgery and I still have some pain there but not the same pain I had before surgery. I'm still on some pain meds but slowly lessening each week. It's no easy surgery or recovery. I spent 5 days in the hospital and had a second in office surgery under anesthesia about 10 days after the TJR to remove the rest of the coronid bone and temporalis connection because I had a big deviation. I have no deviation now when I open. Yay! It's been a long road and very tough mentally and physically and scary. I'm very thankful to have a fantastic surgeon with a great bedside manner and one who truly cares and doesn't give up when things get worse or don't make sense. I'm ready to have my life back and get back to nursing school.