2 years after

2 years ago I woke after my jaw surgery, woozy, in pain, and unsure of how I would heal or if all the buildup and struggle would be worth it.  Those next few month, weren’t easy (see my old posts for details), but here I am 2 years later. . .

 

It has been a busy couple years, so I’d love to say I forgot all about this surgery and put it all behind me, but I do still feel the effects. I continue to be migraine free…its amazing!!  I do still have a numb lower lip and if I forget sometime I’ll drool a little out of the left side (but most people are too polite to point it out :-P ).  I can chew just about anything I want!! Appearance-wise I don’t really see much of a difference pre-surgery and today, except for when I’ll catch a half-profile view of myself in a mirror and feel that I look different somehow, but it is hard to put my finger on what exactly. The physical jaw pain is better, still there, but so much better!  I only wear metal retainers a few nights a week… I still shudder at the thought of braces.

Are you considering this surgery?  Would I recommend that you do it?  That’s entirely up to you and your dental/medical team. It was a tough journey that I would not recommend you take lightly.

Would I do it again? … It’d be very challenging to convince me to go through all of that for a second round. But I’m glad I did it the once.  I do believe that it was worth every step of it to have the results that I have now.  I was in a lot of chronic pain and now I’m not.  I hopefully have many years ahead of me now full of eating, talking, laughing, and eating  J


Here are my pre-surgery and 2 years post- surgery comparison shots...




Top: pre surgery 1/2015. Bottom: 2 years later 1/2017

And that’s it for me... I’m signing off of this blog.  Feel free to comment or message me privately if you have any questions!!!

10 months out

There hasn't been much to report the last few months, but I had a couple of interesting things this week.  First a positive progression!  I forgot my lunch knife one day this week and decided to try actually biting into an apple without cutting it up first.  It worked!  It has been YEARS since I have been able to eat an apple without "pre-planning."  I'm not going to lie, that first bite was hard! My jaw opening felt incredibly inadequate and it felt a bit like I was just nibbling on the apple for those first general bites, but I did it! My first apple in [I have no idea] how many years!
Of course I followed it with some further difficult to eat food (almonds!, chewy bread! candy!) which all resulted in some increased jaw soreness for the last couple of days, but it was totally worth it.

My first bite was MUCH smaller than this one!!

The soreness I have at the moment, does remind me that I should get back into my daily jaw stretches, which I tapered off doing a couple of months ago out of laziness... whoops!

I also saw my orthodontist this week for my 3 month retainer follow-up. I am diligently wearing my retainers 24/7 except to eat or brush.  Every so often when I start snacking on weekends I forget and go a couple hours without wearing them, but for the most part I'd say I'm actually wearing them 90-95% of the time.  I want to do everything I can to help maintain all the work that has been done in my mouth!!

I think that I forgot to mention a few months ago when I got my braces off I also had a dental cleaning that resulted in a lot of gum/tooth pain in the front of my mouth.  It turns out that with all the work I've had done in my mouth these last few years my (already inadequate) gum line over my lower 2 front teeth has receded to the point of uselessness and now I am getting some fun nerve-like pain. My dentist referred me to a periodontist who told me that I need to have a gum graft.  Of course he can't do the procedure when I'm pregnant so its on hold for the moment.  I also wanted to get Dr. R's opinion, since as far as I'm concerned he is the guru of all things involving my mouth!  Dr. R agreed and told me that the Periodontist I saw is the one that he recommends...so probably February-ish I'll be having one more (hopefully) minor last procedure on my mouth for a looooong time!


I'll update with a pic later, but I'm also eight months pregnant and its starting to show in my face! :-0

8 months post surgery

Has it really been 8 months since surgery? I feel like I was just prepping for surgery desperately trying to find advice and blogs on how to get through the upcoming weeks/ months. 

Well I love having my braces off! But really it's not even about the braces,  it's about not wearing those awful rubber bands. I can now open my mouth to talk, yawn, sing... and I don't need to worry about the rubber band snapping in my mouth;  it is so wonderful!

I am wearing my retainers as instructed... 24hrs/ day except to eat and brush. Which is a little annoying, but again so much better than braces! I can eat almost anything now (still rebuilding jaw strength for tougher/chewier foods), for example almonds are still tough, but peanuts are back on the menu!  Also brushing/flossing takes me about a quarter of the time!  I feel like my teeth are so much cleaner!

Here's what my retainers look like:

Upper Retainer

Lower Retainer

8 months out and retainers on!

7 months post surgery

It's been 7 months since my surgery and (despite Dr R. disagreeing with my decision)... I got my braces off today!!!

Getting them off was not as simple or as pain free as I had hoped it would be,  but in less than an hour. I have teeth again for the first time in years!!!

What do you think of my new smile? :-D

6 months post-surgery

I just realized that today is 6 months since my surgery!
I wish I could tell you that I feel all healed up and the surgery never crosses my mind, but I think I have a few more months ahead of me before that becomes reality.

• Pain is minimal, but I do still get some muscular soreness and stiffness along both of mandibles (lower jaws).
• Sensation is still limited along my entire lower lip, the left side of my chin, and my gum lines.
• Vertical opening is still stiff and not fully returned, although improved thanks to physical therapy!  (The stiffness might be partly related to related to the rubber bands restricting movement throughout my day.)
• Headaches- minimal!
• Eating - greatly improved, but I still struggle with harder to chew foods like apple skins, red meat, and bread crusts.

I did see my orthodontist today and we had a nice chat.  Before I get into it, I wanted to let ya'll know that I am now 17 weeks pregnant. I talked with my orthodontist last time and told him that I was [First Trimester] frequently sick and that the rubber bands were not working well for me as I was having difficulty wearing them with regularity. He had told me then that even wearing them 50% of the time was ineffective and not worthwhile.  So I have worked really hard to wear them 100% of the time this past month, but it is just not working for me. I feel the need to snack frequently throughout the day and it is difficult to find the time to snack and reapply the bands in the couple of minutes I have between seeing patients at work.  

Bluntly, I am just tired of the inconvenience and being uncomfortable constantly in the last 3 years of dental/orthognathic work, especially when I have all these new inconveniences and areas of discomfort going on inside my body. I did talk with Dr. R and he felt that a few more months of braces with rubber bands will help sit my bite a little better and allow for a decreased risk of a return of the problems I was having before surgery.  I really appreciate his recommendations as I truly do trust him to have my best dental interests in mind. However, I made the decision to have the braces taken off next month. 

So I have one more month of braces and then good-bye to my metal mouth!  ... Okay I'll have to wear retainers 24/7 for 3-6 months still, but it will be so much better without the rubber bands!

5 months out!

I saw Dr. M (my surgeon) for a 5 month follow-up today and he says that everything looks great!  Nothing is shifting and he measured me at a 42mm vertical opening!!!  At my last PT session we got to 39mm, so I'm not sure where that extra 3 mm came from but I'll take it!  I was at 48mm prior to surgery so I am within 80% which he says is the goal for this far post-op!

This is what I made with popsicle sticks to help with the stretching.

Now I know that I haven't posted much in the last few months, but I and my physical therapist have been working HARD for that opening. It has been a painful few months of deep soft tissue release, stretching, and more stretching!  In case I concerned anyone, physical therapy should not typically be painful ("No pain- No gain" is NOT the way to go) EXCEPT for a few rare instances after surgery where someone develops a contracture and the only way to regain mobility is to really push it. There was real possibility that if I wasn't able to get the contracture stretched out on my own I would of had to have a procedure where they cut the tissue with a laser (called a z-plasty).  So its been a sore couple of months for me, but I made it!  No additional mouth/jaw procedures for me! :)

Look at me! I can open my mouth! ;)

As to my braces...I am so over them and the rubber bands. I see my orthodontist again in mid-July and its going to be very difficult for him to convince me to keep these on any longer.  I'm just about ready to take a pair of plyers and remove them myself. (Ok, not really, I've paid WAY too much for my jaw/teeth to risk ruining them like that...but a girl can dream, right?). The rubber bands have crossed beyond discomfort and minor nuisance to an outright loathing. It's impossible to eat a snack with 24oz of pressure keeping your teeth closed and it has made stretching my vertical opening throughout the day near impossible.

On a positive note I am eating a REAL person diet again! I can't remember the last time I made a smoothie and I really do begrudge the sight of mashed potatoes now!  I had my first bite of steak in >6 months this weekend and it was...heavenly.  I still do not have full jaw strength yet, so the chewing of the steak was a process and I fatigued before I was really done eating, but it was worth it! I still struggle with harder and chewier foods like pizza crusts and snap peas, and I'm nowhere near eating a carrot yet, but it is really getting better!  I feel like a nutritionist might (almost) approve of my diet again :)
 

 I'll update again when I see my Orthodontist next month...hopefully with the amazing news that these braces are coming off!!

Day 108: 32mm!

Sorry, there hasn't been much to post about. Progress has slowed down in most areas, which is good because that means that life has been returning to some what normal!

I am still seeing a Physical Therapist and we are still working on those tight bands of tissue I have on either side of the inside of my mouth.  She says that she's seen scar tissue like this before, but not quite this bad.  It feels like they are guitar strings that you could strum going from the back upper corner of my mouth down to the lower corner. Some days I wish I could just pop them, because I feel like those bands are the only thing keeping my mouth from fully opening.  I have been at nearly 30mm for several weeks now, but finally yesterday after a lot of manual work my opening went to 32mm! (that's about 2.5 fingers width) I am just so excited to break that 30mm mark, because now I know that progress can be made!

My diet is slowing improving.  I am now eating chicken nuggets, saltines, and some breads. I still struggle with harder foods (nuts are still far in the future for me) and thinner foods (like spaghetti and lettuce) as I can't quite seem to bite them well enough. But overall I am back to my pre-surgery soft food diet (like the days after I would get my braces tightened) so its really not bad.

The pain has really gone down dramatically.  I can almost go a whole day without thinking about my jaw at all! The braces and rubber bands are now the largest inconvenience as I am very much over needing to take them off and re-apply my rubber bands every time I want to eat a small snack.  

The lower lip and chin are still numb, but I haven't given up hope that the nerves will grow back *fingers crossed* It wouldn't matter quite as much, but when I do a lot of talking I still feel like I am drooling a lot, which frankly isn't very attractive or professional!

Look you can see my uvula again ;)