A MAN who has accidentally dislocated his jaw seven times since October is confident Bradford surgeons can make it safe for him to eat and even kiss again.

Nathan Kerr, 24, first dislocated his jaw by yawning and has spent the last five months being particularly careful about eating, laughing - and kissing his fiancee Leah Ogrizodic.

"It's funny in a way - but not for me because it's so painful when it happens," said Mr Kerr, a maintenance firm manager, of Keighley.

Speaking yesterday about his condition, he had only just returned from Airedale Hospital in Steeton after yet another dislocation.

He said: "I try so hard to be careful, but sometimes it just happens, especially if I wake up and am drowsy.

"Eating is really difficult and I can't have my favourite big burgers because I don't want to risk opening my mouth."

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Mr Kerr's jaw has previously become dislocated when he drank from a bottle of milk and another time as he was eating a chilli con carne.

"And I can't even kiss my fiancee properly," he said.

"When it happens my jaw just locks open and really hurts

"It dislocated again on Friday and then again last night and I only got back home at 5am," said Mr Kerr yesterday.

"Every time I have to go to Airedale and they sedate me a bit with some morphine and then put the jaw back in place.

"It's awful - not the most enjoyable of experiences.

"Nobody else in my family has this problem and I don't know why it's started, but I've got every confidence that the doctors will solve it.

"I was due to go to the maxi-facial unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary for an operation on April 7, but I'm going see if I can get that brought forward.

"I am sure that surgery will fix the problem - it's an operation similar to when you break your jaw and then a pin is inserted so that it can't dislocate again."

Maxi-facial surgeons at Bradford Royal Infirmary were busy in operating theatres yesterday and unable to comment, but Mr Kerr's problem was said to be relatively common.

There are four different positions of jaw dislocation: posterior, anterior, superior and lateral.

The most common position is anterior which can happen either on one or both sides of the jaw after yawning.

Anterior dislocation shifts the lower jaw forward if the mouth opens two widely and the degree of travel in the jaw is determined by the masseter and temporalis muscles which pull up on the mandible and the lateral pterygoid which relaxes the mandibular condyle.