How much is speech affected?

[ready4change]

I'm about to go through orthognathic surgery and am wondering how much your speech is affected throughout the process. First, the braces - does that affect your speech? Then the surgery - are you able to speak afterwards and how long is it before you are able to speak normally again? I'm a linguist and would like to return to work as soon as possible, but I need to have realistic expectations.

[Lucia07]

Hi ready4change,

I can only answer that the braces doesn't affect your speech. I'm an SLP and I thought it felt a bit different having the braces but I was still able to do therapy. I haven't had the orthognathic surgery yet but I will be 11 days from now. I asked my surgeon the recovery time to know when I would be going back to work and the doctor estimated 4-6 weeks.

When is your surgery? If I have mine before you I can let you know if it took 4-6 weeks. Also I think the recovery time is different whether you only have one jaw (lower/upper) surgery or both upper and lower jaw surgery. I will be having both upper and lower.

Hope my reply helps.

[class3underbiteboy]

My speech was affected when I had an expander put it, had lots of trouble talking properly and saliva build-up was ridiculous. Got used to it tho, but when the gap started developing I also developed a bit of a lisp. Braces don't seem to have affected anything whatsoever in terms of speech. And have yet to see jaw surgery effects.