How long is the soreness supposed to last when re-learning how to chew?

[Jawbreak]

I'm almost 3 months post-op, and I've challenged myself a bit more with chewing these past two weeks (bread, chicken, thin-slice veggie pizza, etc.), and my jaw feels sore at the end of the day. I'm just wondering if I'm pushing myself too far, or if it's normal to have some soreness because I'm exercising my jaw muscles more? I'm assuming the soreness is in the muscles, but how can I tell, really? There's definitely no searing/acute pain, just overall feeling of jaw fatigue and a slight throbbing near the joints.

Anyone else experienced this?

[jaime]

I had soreness for quite awhile and what you described sounds normal to me.

It gradually got better for me, less often and less sore. I don't remember exactly when it stopped but I feel like it was around 1 year post-op.

As long as you're not in severe pain or noticing other side effects after eating, I say keep it up. Be smart and don't go biting into raw carrots or a well-done steak or anything, but slowly reintroduce chewier and harder foods. Sounds like you're on the right track!

[braces101]

I started *trying* to eat at around 6 weeks. It was another week until I could get my mouth open wide enough to eat anything that I couldn't drink. I had pretty severe tmj pain, difficulty opening my mouth and difficulty chewing soft foods for probably another 2 weeks after that but I tried to ignore the pain and keep things moving.

I'm almost at 3 months now too and anything that requires opening the mouth more than probably 1.5 inches is still a bit of a challenge to bite into. If I yawn a lot, I definitely get soreness in the joints as well.

If you haven't already, you might try stretching your jaw side to side (relax jaw, put fist on one side of chin and push like you are punching) and opening your mouth with light force to loosen up the muscles. My surgeon suggested these. They helped me a lot with the soreness during the difficult times and also seemed to help with range of motion.

[Jawbreak]

Thanks for the tips/reassurance guys!

I actually ended up emailing my surgeon yesterday night because I was paranoid (as always), and this morning he told me that it means I need to back off and let my jaw heal for a few days. Ugh. I don't know if he's just being extremely conservative to be safe or something. It's frustrating because it seems like everyone else's surgeon is given them the go ahead to eat pretty much anything they can tolerate at 6-8 weeks. I do trust my surgeon completely, and I know he's one of the best in the business, so maybe it's just specific to my situation? Maybe he thinks my bones are too thin?

Anyways, since I'm too scared to screw something up, I'll listen to him and go back to a no-chew diet for 3 days. I didn't chew anything today and there's no soreness at all, so I guess that's a good sign. At least it shows that it definitely was related to chewing, and not that something is wrong with the healing. Can't wait to be at the point where I can eat anything I want (except for like nuts) without being afraid of breaking my bones

[braces101]

It definitely does depend on the surgery. My surgeon advised me not to chew anything hard on my front teeth since he left that section somewhat mobilized in order to get the proper lock in.

I had similar concerns initially with breaking bones but he also reassured me that there's a very small risk of that with healthy bones. Basically, he said the only time it has happened to his patient was in a car accident. That said, I too had some days where I just decided to give my joints a break and go all liquid so it's probably not a bad idea if you're having pain.