Met with my surgeon. Scheduled for hardware removal next week. Upper and lower since I do have worsened sinus inflammation as well.
He said the nerve is NOT in the canal when the screws go in, in fact they reposition the nerve during the surgery, so he doesn’t know whether screw removal will help. I don’t think he thinks it’s impinging the nerve, but he did say he recommends doing removal anyway. Said something like the screw could be compressing the bone which is impinging the nerve.
But the SCREW itself is not hitting the nerve since during surgery they remove the nerve the canal and reposition it UNDER the canal. I don’t think the radiologist knows this fact.
As to Richardson’s view of muscle incarceration, my surgeon has no idea what he’s (Richardson) is talking about and says the muscle wouldn’t be trapped. There is no muscle to be entrapped, etc. Said he would take a picture of my chin during surgery to show me. But he said he’ll take a look to see if anything is snagged, anyways. But he can’t really comment on what Richardson would do.
Said he will clean up some scar tissue as well.
In summary, I’m way LESS confident that hardware removal will solve my problems since the nerve isn’t even in the canal, and I did not know this 24 hours ago.