How long to get feeling back?

[Ben]

I had lower jaw surgery to correct an overbite 6 months ago and still have almost zero feeling in right side of chin/lip. In the left side I have just recently began to tingle in the chin and lip both. It's almost like touching your hand after it has "fallen asleep" from laying on it or something.

Should I be giving up hope yet? I've read several posts on here where people start to get the feeling back a LOT quicker.

If you want to read my entire "story" check the post I just made in the Ask the Doc forum.

[smile2006]

I was told 6 months to a year is totally normal. If you are getting tingling maybe the feeling will return over the next half a year. I had surgery (upper, lower and genio) on July 13 and still have some numbness in my chin and very center of my lower lip so I know what you are dealing with. It is slowly coming back but I had hoped it would happen quicker than it is!!!!!

[Ben]

Thanks Meryaten and all. I have a friend that said it took about a year to get full feeling back, and that one side did take a lot longer to come back than the other, so I guess I just have to keep hope. It really sucks though, if there's one place on my body that I'd like to keep feeling it would be my lips, that's a pretty important area!

Has anyone else here experienced numbness that lasted more than 6+ months only for it to return to normal?

[KathleenH]

I gradually got feeling back, and thought that I was back to normal. Until my ortho adjustment a month ago, eight months post-surgery. I actually felt the tugs for the first time since surgery. So it really is a long process. My OS told me to expect to have numbness for about a year before becoming concerned about permanent nerve damage.

[katevv]

It's been a year and two months and I still only have faint feeling in my lower lip and corners of my mouth.