05/08/2026
Whitney suffered from idiopathic condylar resorption. Without treatment, it causes the joints to deteriorate, the bite shifts, and the airway narrows. By the time she came to see us, her jaws had been trying to compensate for failing joints for years.
As a result she had a severe anterior open bite. Her upper and lower front teeth didn't touch when she closed her mouth, making it impossible to bite into food.
Her condyles, the joints that allow the jaw to open and move, had completely degenerated on both sides. That caused her jaw to collapse backward and downward, pulling her bite apart and compressing her airway.
She couldn't close her lips or breathe well through her nose. Mouth breathing became her only option, including during sleep.
She could force her jaw open, but movement stopped at 60% of normal range. She couldn’t eat anything hard, chewy, or sticky. She was having headaches four times a week across the jaw, temples, neck, and face.
Her airway measured 83 mm² at its narrowest point. A healthy airway averages 140 mm² or above. Hers was roughly one-third of that, about the size of a pinky fingernail.
Her surgery included:
1. Bilateral TMJ reconstruction with total joint prosthetics to replace the failed joints.
2. Fat grafts to both joint spaces harvested from the abdomen to reduce inflammation and promote healing.
3. A LeFort I osteotomy to reposition the upper jaw.
4. A genioglossus advancement to pull the tongue base forward and open the airway.
5. Partial nasal turbinectomies to restore nasal breathing.
Six months after surgery, her pain was gone. With her airway open and nasal breathing restored, her sleep finally had the conditions it needed to recover.
By eighteen months, she shared that she weighed more than she had in seven years, her body finally able to absorb the nutrition it had been missing and begin to rebuild.
