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TMJ Resources - Our Family - Patient Talk

Jolene

After years of suffering, I finally had my Vitek TMJ implants (both sides) removed in May of this year. It took my surgeons 12 hours to hammer and chisel the implants out due to severe bony ankylosis. They also found severe pockets of infection. None of this showed up on the CT scan and it was totally unexpected. Luckily (if you can say that), the ankylosis was so bad it kept the infection from spreading. Additionally, although the proplast portion had broken up the metal plates were still screwed into the fossa, thereby keeping the infection from spreading into the bone and brain. As soon as she cut me open I went into cardiac and pulmonary distress as a result of the infection. My temp went up to 105 degrees and I ended up in the Cardiac Care Unit for a week. My surgeon was going to put in bone distractors in order for me to regrow my own bone but because of the way I form ankylosis and the infection she couldn't use the distractors. Instead, I had to wait for two and a half months, without joints, before new implants were put in. The implants I have now are from TMJ Concepts which is the only company approved by the FDA and the only one my insurance will pay for. I had surgery in 08/02 at the university by a doctor that was a supposed expert on these implants. He only operated on the left side and just removed the debris from the proplast and did a muscle graft. He left the condyle implant intact. Although I was cut from the top of my head to the bottom of my jaw, he apparently failed to notice the severe ankylosis because he never mentioned it. I went back to him several months later to tell him my other side was starting to bother me quite a bit. He basically brushed me off. He was glad when he found out I was moving. I think he knew what a mess there was and didn't want to deal with it. I'm thinking about seeing a lawyer to see if I have any recourse. I believe the university let me down. The doctor should not have closed me back up knowing the mess that was in there plus the fact the implants had been recalled. I was lucky to find a fantastic surgeon here.