Steak

Message

#1 Post by **shutup&kissme** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:42 pm

Hi All,

How are you all doing in this heat? I'm getting unwired next Tuesday, September 4th (woohoo!) and will have been wired by then for 6 weeks. Now my original plan was to get Chicken Madeira at Cheesecake Factory, or steak as my celebratory meal that night. However, everyone keeps telling me that I need to take it slow for the sake of my stomach and my jaw. How long did it take you all to eat whatever you wanted? Was it hard or painful to eat or chew or open your mouth after being unwired? I'm not going to have to stick with liquids for another week or anything, right?! (I miss food an incredible amount

) Please let me know how fast you all graduated to steaks and fries and burgers and crunchy veggies. Thank you so much!

P.S. & if you did have the same idea as me and had steak the night of being unwired, did you suffer any ill effects? And if so, was it worth it?

#2 Post by **ohmyjaw** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:17 pm

Whoa, six weeks? I was wired for 10 days and that was plenty. I can't imagine six weeks. What was it like? Does your surgeon wire all of his patients or were you an exception?

When I was unwired my surgeon told me to start with soft foods. When you have your wires taken off, I imagine your surgeon will let you know if you're going to have any restrictions on what you can eat. I think my first solid meal was baked salmon and mashed yams and rice. My jaw was pretty sore and didn't open very wide. But I was back to almost normal chewing within a week or two. So, I don't know if steak will be doable for your first meal, but I am sure it won't be too long before you are chomping away.

#3 Post by **Brandyleigh35** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:55 pm

I ate very thinly sliced, small tiny bites, of Filet Mignon at 6 weeks. It was still rather hard to chew, and mostly I think I swallowed it whole, but it still tasted really good.

I'm at 3.5 months post op and still working at the chewing thing. Salad is still pretty hard, and while I can sorta shred celery I cannot bite carrots at all, they just hurt. Tough steak is still totally out, and I can honestly say that crusty breads and things that are not very soft are still quite difficult. If I'm to be totally honest, most of my food is swallowed mostly whole, when too hard to chew. Chewing take awhile to totally get back.

Another thing to consider is that you may not be able to get your mouth open. Range of motion takes awhile to get back and after being wired for 6 weeks my guess is that you are not going to be able to get your mouth open very wide at all for a little while. For the first few weeks I could barely get a baby spoon in mine.

Good Luck!

Brandy

#4 Post by **shutup&kissme** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:28 am

Meryaten: Man that Brown Ale chicken sounds super good right now!!! Thank you for your always informative answers- you're wonderful.

Ohmyjaw: 6 weeks was... it wasn't super horrible, but I had my moments when my family would all be eating some huge delicious dinner and wafts of the dinner would drift up towards me and I'd want to cry. The not talking part wasn't bad, I usually talk too much anyways, but the not eating part was the worst. And from what I know, my surgeon wires all of his patients for 6 weeks- I asked about it and he said that he just wants to make sure I'm completely healed. And I think I'm going to be rubber banded after the wires come off. Oy.

Brandyleigh35: Woohoo, there is hope for me! Filet Mignon is good too! But the question is, can I wait 6 weeks?

You mentioned not being able to open your mouth very wide- did that have any effect on speech?

Thank you all so much for your answers! I expected some pain, but I never thought that I just simply wouldn't be able to exert pressure. I guess patience is key.

#5 Post by **SandraJones** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:35 am

Now that is interesting ... I had my Le Fort I in 1981 and was wired for 6 weeks, then have since found (through this forum and my own reading) that it is no longer common to do the total fixation, most get elastics right away. I was wired for 6 and had elastics for some number of weeks after the wires were removed.

In the book that Phil posted the link to, in one chapter it said that wiring is the total fixation via wiring is "controversial". So apparently some docs believe it best but others don't, they are clearly not all in agreement.

Shutup ... when my wires were removed and I was able to open my jaw, I couldn't even eat a french fry !!! My jaw was very stiff and I had great difficulty moving it. So postpone your challenging celebratory meal til your jaw is functioning again. Or run it through the blender

#6 Post by **asd** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:59 pm

I was banded for 5 weeks, im now 10 weeks post off and still finding it difficult to chew, mostly because my jaws still wont open enough ( They will open half an inch) Youl need to be patient and give your jaws time to strenchten the musles before eating hard foods like steak, i still cant imaigne eating tha tfor a long time!

#7 Post by **Miss Smiley** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:51 pm

hey little cousin... What'd I say about your big big plans for all your crazy meals?! You're going to have to wait! Take it easy, people don't have casts taken off of broken limbs and go back to being 100% right away. They have to take some time to gain back the use of all the muscles. Slowly but surely, you'll be back to eating all of my chocolate fondue and fried shrimp!

#8 Post by **phil** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:42 pm

NINE WEEKS and still not chewing (AGAIN!). OK, I've had extenuating circumstances. But still, you never know.

I was hoping for a steak dinner for my birthday late in October--even had the restaurant all picked out. I think it's going to be homemade gnocchi at my favorite Italian place instead. In my current situation, I'm not going to be brave enough to try chewing again for a VERY long time!

#9 Post by **Rainy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:29 pm

Meryaten I want to know the name of the resturant your going to. I want that chicken dish....mmmmmm

Rainy

#10 Post by **shutup&kissme** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:26 pm

nOoOoOoooOoO! Not even a fry?!?!! Oh man, all this has been a huge lesson in patience. Well, I suppose it's all worth it.

SandraJones- Our situations are similar- how long did it take for you to gain full control again?

asd- Is there any pain accompanying the not opening when you try to open your mouth? (I'm just seeing how far I can stretch my limits

)

Big Cuz- I know, I know but I mean you firsthand know how much I love food, it was the thing I was looking most forward too.

But soon doo boo and naeng myun and stuff is good too.

Phil- You still have some time, you don't think you'll be able to tackle steak in October? Good luck I hope you can!

Here's some questions for all of you who have been wired in any sort of way: For the first two weeks, what foods were you able to eat? Pasta? Soft breads? Fruit? And how long did it take for you to regain full control again? And do you know of any jaw exercises that I can do (even starting now) to be able to speed up the stretching process?

#11 Post by **phil** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:21 pm

Even if the surgeon says it's ok, my personal plan (no matter WHAT!) is NO chewing until 2008. My only exceptions will be food that can be chewed with basically NO pressure. My surgeon's attitude was just a little too laid back, I think, and had he approached things a little more conservatively, I think that there's a chance I would be much better off now. My opinion is to be cautious in the beginning. I probably needed to be in an occlusal splint for a couple of weeks post-operatively, with tight banding, before they changed ANYTHING. Maybe my bones would have healed better with more conservative treatment.

Whatever you do, my opinion is to approach this chewing thing VERY carefully. As the old adage goes, "better safe than sorry."

#12 Post by **dubnobass** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:42 pm

phil wrote:I probably needed to be in an occlusal splint for a couple of weeks post-operatively, with tight banding, before they changed ANYTHING. Maybe my bones would have healed better with more conservative treatment.

I think you may have had the same problem as me, Phil - because of the corrected assymetry, the jaw muscles weren't allowing my lower teeth to fit in the splint very well. The team that treated me don't do wiring and I don't think they're even fans of tight banding, so a splint that wasn't guiding my jaws into the right position was neither use nor ornament, and they removed it after a week.

#13 Post by **SandraJones** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:19 am

Shutup&kissme, I'm sorry, I just can't recall how long it took to get back to normal. I remember that immediate post-dewiring frustration eating the french fry but nothing particularly frustrating after that. No doubt I kept to softer foods for a while, but the fact that I don't recall being otherwise frustrated, and the fact that nothing is mentioned for my follow-up visits, is probably a good sign that my jaws quickly resumed normal functioning.

#14 Post by **shutup&kissme** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:28 pm

Thank you all for your good advice. It'll be temporary so I should just suck it up and be happy not to be wired shut for any longer.

#15 Post by **Shae** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:20 pm

OMG, for those who live down in Oz, get some Kangaroo... it's really soft... compared to steak from a cow. BEST thing ever!