Braces after surgery

[kristin29]

Hi all,

I've had quite a bit of experience with oral surgery, so if any of you guys have questions I'll be more than happy to help.

My history:
I have had my wisdom teeth taken out, bone grafting, two dental implants, and am about to have lower jaw surgery to be moved forward. I have also been wearing braces for almost 9 years now..yikes.

It seems like my mouth was pretty screwed up but this is only because I had two molars removed when I was 10 years old only to realize that the doctor was working off of someone else's x-rays! and of course those ended up being my permanent teeth that were removed.

So because I wasn't able to have my implants until I was 18 my lower jaw deteriorated and then I had the bone grafting (PAINFUL surgery). Also, because I've been in braces for so long to maintain the spacing needed for implants my bite has been going each and every way and has never been stable.
Now I need to have a lower jaw surgery which will probably be in two
months or so. The doctor said I will be able to go home the day of surgery and that I'll have my teeth wired together for 14 days.

My question is how long did you have to wear braces after the surgery? I am so anxious to finally get these things off as I am now 20 years old.

[Brandyleigh35]

OMG Kristin,
You poor thing! I read your post and all I could think of was "Lawsuit, Lawsuit, Lawsuit" Please tell me you are being compensated for this grave error of judgement on your orthos part? I cannot even imagine being in braces for 9 years!

I will be having a lower molar implant eventually, but my os wants to do the bone graft while he is doing my lower jaw advancement surgery. Can you tell me why the grafting was so painful?


Brandy

[kristin29]

Hi Brandy!

I will be compensated for my implants/grafting from my ortho..wasn't easy though, they didn't want to ... I am so tired of these braces and surgery..I feel like its never going to end

I had my bone grafting the same time as my wisdom teeth were pulled. I had the grafting on both sides of my lower jaw and the bone taken from my upper jaw.
I ended up having a lot of swelling- it looked like I gained 4 chins and at least 20 lbs just in my face!

The vicodin the doc gave me didn't help whatsoever..what really worked for the pain was children's liquid ibuprofen. Of course I went through a couple bottles of the stuff every couple days but it worked wonders, I won't even use vicodin anymore.
I was in bed for about 4 days after the surgery and the swelling and bruising didn't start to go away for about 7-9 days.

I didn't mean to scare you..I got through it fine once I started the ibuprofen instead of vicodin.. but just be prepared to be in bed for a couple days, which you probably will be anyway because of the lower jaw surgery.

However, the surgery for my implants was a piece of cake..after the side-effects from the general wore off I felt absolutely fine but I did drink soup for a few days afterwards.

Will they be grafting the bone from your upper jaw?
Are you going to be having your jaw wired together after the surgery?


Kristin

[pokergirl]

Wow, you have already been through so much to be so young. I'm 39 and just starting the whole braces procedure. I had 3 wisdom teeth pulled in January and had bone grafting done then where they plan to put an implant in next year. They were going to take bone from another site but ended up having to use artificial bone. But you're right, it does hurt worse than the wisdom teeth extraction. Let me know how your jaw surgery turns out. I'll be having mine in a year.

[tklein22000]

Did you were fixed braces at all time during your 9 year treatment? I hope you get your braces off soon after your surgery and then have a nice smile