12 weeks post-op

[davinci7]

Well it's been 3 months since I went through the dreaded surgery and I thought i'd give you all a snap shot of how I am now.

Eating is still awkward. I can eat most foods if I cut them up small enough but I do sometimes end up with sore bones. I'm just starting to sleep without waking up and having a sore jaw from the pressure of the pillow. I can talk fine (except for the braces). The braces feel much more awkward than before as the surgery has brought my jaws forward putting a lot of strain on my lips.

Now that the swelling has well and truly subsided I can see that my face has not changed much at all. Unless I told people, they would never guess that I had facial surgery. Even comparing photos side by side I look the same, except I think that the length between my nose and upper lip is longer. This makes my face look slightly longer which is something I'm not too happy about. My lips don't close without great effort which is difficult. My lips didn't close naturally before the surgery and now they are somewhat worse. I do hope this improves.

Overall, I'm glad it's over. I only suffered a couple of weeks of pain but an awful lot of discomfort and disruption to my work life. I can't wait to get the braces off. It has been a long recovery which I didn't really expect. I'm happy with the functional improvement of my jaw...my bite is now normal. Aesthetically, it hasn't made much difference which is hard to believe considering how much movement was made to both my upper and lower jaws. I didn't have the genioplasty but might consider it after 12 months as I don't have much of a chin.

The orthodontics did make a huge difference to my teeth and bite, but whether I'd do the surgery again is questionable.

[Norrie]

Congrats on being this far out from surgery. It sounds like you're healing well, but man, what a tough surgery. Would you recommend it to others in a similar situation?

[kelse]

Gosh that does sound like a long revovery. Hopefully you are feeling getter now

[Noella]

I'm almost 11 weeks post op. Have you noticed muscle memory being a problem with learning how to adjust to your bite? I'm having a lot of problems with that.

[davinci7]

Sometimes I'm not quite sure where my natural bite is but generally it's not a problem at this stage. The first month was weird because I often wake up thinking that my mouth was open and would try to close it only to find that it was already shut.

[survenant]

Has your lip incompetence gone down since november?