I love my teeth wrote:I bit into and chewed a sandwich and a hamburger
Wow, wow, wow. This is just fantastic news. Congrats!
suzanna wrote:You don't know how lucky you are to not have any lower jaw numbness. I keep biting my lower lip and having food all over my lower lip/chin (at times)......Are you able to chew well with your mouth closed?
I'm not sure I would call it "chewing" just yet. It depends on the food. My molars aren't quite ready to grind food into smaller bits yet. I had a disappointing dinner last night - open face pulled pork bbq. The bread was no problem, while I just couldn't handle the pulled pork. I'm not sure if it's a my lack of jaw stength, misalignment of my bite, or even a lack of jaw stability that was my problem. After a handful of frustrating attempts, I just quit and had a protein shake for dinner instead.
I don't make a mess down my chin when I eat, so I that's a positive that I didn't realize I had going for me. I chew everything very gingerly still. And I feel like I'm making quite a mess, inside my mouth that is. With my upper jaw numbness I always feel that I have food stuck *everywhere* in my mouth when I'm done eating, which is usually just half-true. I haven't seen a change to my upper jaw nerves yet.
I saw my OS this morning for my quick weekly check up (I'm just shy of six weeks post-op presently). He thought my swelling was reduced from being able to chew and talk lately. He told me to go ahead and reduce my time in the rubber bands by about 6 hours during the day on & off (to this point they've only been out when I eat, that's it). So I have been wearing them at work, which has been a better experience than being wired...but not by much. I have been able to take them out when I need to talk on the phone, which has been quite an improvement.
He said the next time I see him, we will likely move to just wearing them at night only. Since I'm seeing my ortho next week, my OS said that I need to heed my ortho's advice with the rubber bands as the priority opinion, and that he would talk to my ortho before that appointment. I do love that coordination between those two, I think they must play a lot of golf together.
I also asked about the fact that my lower is slightly off from my centerline. I told him that I had followed his advice and tried to regularly push it into position, but my teeth wouldn't hold that spot. He didn't think much of it, and expects the ortho to take care of that issue. He also told me that it might not be perfect in the end, but considering where we started we're not talking about much, which seems reasonable to me. I had the bands in for the whole appointment, so he just took my word that I could open 20mm already, and again didn't seem to think that was a priority. He restated that it would take quite some time, five weeks wired usually equates to a minimum of five weeks unwired before the range returns anwhere near 100%. [I just measured officially, I can open ~25mm!]
My mother-in-law is taking my kids for the night tomorrow, so the wife and I will be heading out to eat with another couple. I'm rather excited, expecting that we will head out for either sushi or some (boneless) wings. My four year old has been asking "when my bones will be fixed" so that I can wrestle around with him and his brother again, so I've also got that to look forward to in the near future. I signed up for a few short distance triathlons this summer, and I've ridden my bicycle a little bit this week (on the trainer). Also, I am going to head to the pool for laps tonight. I've been (lightly) weight lifting since week 3 of my recovery, and what a difference it is now that I can breathe without that splint wired in place. It's still a very slow process to get back to my pre-surgical level of strength and endurance. I feel like my recovery is really gaining some momentum this week.
DRG