I consulted with Dr Wolford, nice man. He didn't see my MRI but others have and there's no indication for myself. Of the people I've met who had anchors done they failed miserably. I've met maybe a half dozen. However, they were all seriously screwed up people to begin with. I can point you to one such patient if you want to discuss or check out the FB TMJ group. They've told me they know people who did well with them. I haven't checked myself but I'd think a resorbable anchor might be ok but I don't think they do those yet in practice.
This is one of those f**ked if you do f**ked if you don't situations I think sadly. It's true that Dr Wolford stands alone in his research here but there's a lot of unpublished anecdotal research from other surgeons that reproduces his findings. He's very well respected in the oral surgery community, I don't think the data is fabricated or anything like that and he certainly has larger volume of patients at his disposal than most other studies would have. Long term, surgical intervention is the right approach for many people I think. In your shoes, I wouldn't do it however. Some amount of canon fodder is necessary for this technique to become perfected and I wouldn't want to be in that position, it's not there yet. Dr Wolford has been doing it for over 15 years now and from my meeting with him, I don't think he'd still be doing it if he weren't seeing a lot of success. The alternative is homeostasis approach. The thought is that a pseudodisc forms from scar tissue in the joint stabilizing it. Other researchers have noted high success rates in jaw surgery on these patients. This is one area that I think Arnett/Gunson really excel, the pharmaceutical intervention for degenerative joints. I'd look into that for yourself. Prepare yourself for a long hard road, you may continue to have joint pain for a year or more afterwards and your bite may relapse, just remember that it's likely better than the alternative. In my case, I'd still be better off after surgery a small malocclussion.
Hold out as long as you can, stabilization splint, TMJ Nextgen, etc whatever it takes. You might have to wait a decade or two but a good solution will appear. One of the risks of surgery is the preclusion of future surgery. Scar tissue, new/unknown problems, etc. can make it hard to redo previous surgeries.
