SARPE Surgery

[chicago29]

I'm 4 and 1/2 months into my sentence with both an upper and lower hyrax after upper and lower expansion surgery in February. I promise you the salivating will stop, and eating will become manageable (although it is far from great).

I agree with crazybeautiful that the talking won't improve much. Yes, I'm much better than I was on day 1, but it never is "normal". I hate saying words like "green" and "screen", and I've tried to come up with words that mean the same but that I can pronounce For the most part I have gotten used to this, but I admit I am pretty quiet around new people as I hate explaining what I'm dealing with. After a while, it gets exhausting and I simply don't desire to tell everybody about my process...

I have about a month and a half left with these things...and while I have grown accustomed to them I cannot wait until they are sawed out of me!!!

Best of luck to you...If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask.

[zeira]

Hi,
I just got my tentative surgery date for July 31st after waiting for a month to hear back from them. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on travelling after the surgery. I was planning to fly back home for about 3 weeks a couple of weeks after the surgery. It seems like my ortho's office is on vacation as I haven't been able to contact them (I wish they'd let me know about that!).
Do you think I should be able to fly about 3 weeks after the surgery? And does the ortho usually need to see you weeks 3-6 after the surgery (that's when I would be away)?
Thanks for the help!

[chicago29]

What kind of surgery are you having? If it is just SARPE, you can probably travel at 3 weeks. That may conflict with OS or OD follow ups but you should be able to schedule around them. My surgeon and ortho wanted to see me at week 1, week 2, week 4, and then once a month after that up until month 4. Everybody's case is different though, so take this with a grain of salt...

[zeira]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I'm having just the SARPE, and his initial estimate was that I would be expanding for about 8 days. I imagine I should be ok, but I'll probably have to wait till I get in touch with them.

[sarpevictim]

Hey guys, I have a pretty serious question.

I'm a week post-op. My swelling had gone away almost completely, but today it started coming back, not visibly from the outside, but I feel it. It's mostly around the cuts. The cuts also feel warm. Is this normal, or is this an infection?

I've been brushing my teeth and mouth-washing regularly to make sure I don't get an infection. What should I do? I took the last of my antibiotics today so I'm worried about it.

[happy teeth]

I had my SARPE surgery earlier today at around 830 and wanted to lend my experience to those preparing to go through with the surgery. The surgery took around 90 min. and I woke up feeling pretty good. I had a ton of swelling and bruising comparable to what I experienced when I had four wisdom teeth extracted. The biggest and most annoying problems I've had are the nosebleeds. I had never before had a nosebleeds. However nasal sprays will help. There is little pain, more like a dull pounding I was prescribed percocet but haven't needed it, ibruprofen done the job. The turning starts in a couple of days and I'll let y'all know how it goes. The aim is 11 millimeters.
Good Luck to everyone else going through this.

[chicago29]

@sarpevictim: I think this is pretty normal. I had that "feeling" like swelling returned for a few weeks post-op. I am not sure I had the "warm" feeling though, so you should keep an eye on it. If you had an infection, there would be pain, pus or discharge from the wounds, and you would be swollen and not just feel swollen. If you have any doubts, as I always say, call up your OS

@happy teeth: Congratulations you're on the other side!

[ZmaN277]

Just thought I'd share what my SARPE was like to support the cause.

If I had to summarize, I'd say the whole experience was pretty easy to deal with.

I woke up in the hospital, truthfully in not that much pain. I was swollen but bit, but not so much that it hurt, and I was ready to leave about an hour or two after I woke up.

When I got off the IV, the pain started to rise, but as soon as I popped some of the Vicodin the doctor gave me it pretty much all went away.

I'd say I was passed out on Vicodin for a day or two at most, then started to resume normal activity.

I did experience a fairly large gap, but the entire thing closed in about 1.5-2 weeks, which I thought was fairly reasonable.

It wasn't super fun to go to school like that, but all-in-all it wasn't that bad

Here's some pictures to help you out:






That was about the biggest it got.

..Adorable ;D

[colorpurple]

so i could have sworn that the OS told me he was going to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth at the same time of the sarpe. and today before i went in he informed me that that was never the plan. that doing so would put pressure on my upper jaw. does that sound solid to you? i can't help but suspect that he just wants me to come in another time. i'm concerned cuz they're all impacted and i'm certain i need to get them removed, but i dont know how i'm going to do that now and if it will delay my ortho treatment.

[KeithF40]

i was supposed to have mine removed when i got my sarpe, he forgot. so you can certainly do it, if you dont its just an outpatient procedure in his office, should only take a couple hours.

[sarpevictim]

colorpurple, I have to get mine removed too, because they have already penatrated the gums, but they decided to not do it now so that the body can focus on one thing at a time.

By the way guys, I got some great news today from the ortho. I'm done expanding!!! I am 7mm, and he wants me to do 5 more turns just to get me on the extra side!

This is great because initially he wanted me to do 10-12 mm (he wanted to put on a second RPE!) And now I don't have to! Yay!

I had my surgery Jun 4th. I can't believe it went so fast! Ortho thinks I can get braces put on in about 3 weeks. And to be honest, having the giant gap really wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I'll post a pic later on if I can.

[sarpevictim]

Okay here we go. Haha sorry it's not a flattering pic, I had just woken up, but you can see the gap and also the (severe) overbite. My teeth are generally straight, it's just the overbite that's the problem:



No before pic though but palate is definetly bigger!!! [/img]

[sarpevictim]

Okay here we go. Haha sorry it's not a flattering pic, I had just woken up, but you can see the gap and also the (severe) overbite. My teeth are generally straight, it's just the overbite that's the problem:



No before pic though but palate is definetly bigger!!!

[KeithF40]

oh thats brutual sarpe victim, but not as bad as mine since my whole mouth is a disaster

just hang in there, at least u look like u got a tight body

[colorpurple]

so i had my sarpe last tuesday and as expected the first few days were rough, but at day 5, i'm begining to feel better. a lot of the swelling has come down, esp on one side.

however, i'm really CONCERNED about my nose!!! it looks super pointed up and the nostrils looked flared. should i attribute this to the swelling? my nose doesn't look swollen per se, but it looks pig like.