Metal Mouth Message Board

For anyone active in sports, how long until you were playing again. I want to go back to volleyball after 2 weeks. Is that realistic?

No, definitely not!

The standard advice following Lefort I and/or BSSO is no contact sports for a minimum of 6 weeks - and since volleyball may involve being hit in the face with a ball, as well as colliding with team-mates, I would not risk it. Even after 6 weeks, I'd advise caution. By 6 weeks, the bones are just starting to knit together, and are far from being fully healed. The plates will take a lot, but a hard blow could knock them out of alignment and re-fracture the bones.

Having been there, done that, I would also say that I very much doubt you will feel up to playing volleyball at 2 weeks post-op.

sorry, not really. besides the fact that you will still feel a bit crappy and swollen...do you really want a volleyball coming at your face with a broken jaw? plus, if you are having a sarpe, you will still be turning a key, which means your jaw is actively being kept broken, not healing. i wasnt allowed to go back to field hockey until my jaw was completely healed, 8 weeks and even still i wear a face mask to protect my jaw and teeth (since now its pretty much impossible to wear a mouth guard), which was a compromise between the surgeon and I since he didnt want me playing anything until everything was totally done. in his words, one ball is all it takes to ruin all of that work.

my sister broke her nose just being a vollyball ref in college. imagine the mess getting blocked or spiked in the face?

i know you are anxious to play again, i couldnt coach all summer, and wont be able to play or coach again this summer while i have another surgery. but you need to think of it as a small sacrifice for all the good that is going to come from the work you are haivng done. before you know it, you will be done with everything and back to playing. if you are anywhere near as active as i am, i know this is a total bummer, but i have made it and so i am confident you will too.

good luck with everything!

My surgeon said not to return to ANY contact sports or 12 months. He said any trauma to the face before everything is completely healed can ruin the surgery.

a typical fracture takes 6-8 weeks to heal. but even then the bone isn't healed completely. its just that it can sustain pressure without compromising the bone. But it takes a good year/12months to heal a bone. I work with division I volleyball athletes on a regular basis. and i would definitely say no to volleyball after 2 weeks. I would talk to your surgeon first but i even think 6-8 weeks is kinda pushing but definitely safer. While getting hit in the face isn't all that common, remember it only takes that one time and thing you would be in worse shape.

Just to be different... I am a rock-climber and I started climbing again 12 days after surgery (Lefort and BSSO).

That being said, it is really very difficult to injure your face while climbing. In general, rocks don't jump off the cliff and hit your face. On rare occasions, they fall from above and can land on your head, but that is why we wear helmets. And in 15 years I have never been hit by anything bigger than a pebble.

I would suggest talking to your surgeon about going back to volleyball, but I expect you'll want to wait 6 weeks at least. You can probably do other things, though, like going to the gym, exercise bike, etc. Just avoid sports with flying projectiles!

I don't know what I was thinking......I didn't even think to ask the surgeon this. I haven't been able to play for a while and was invited to play on a team starting in January. I thought boy this is great, I'll have a team again. It just dawned on me now that my surgery is two weeks away that this is not going to work.

I am so bummed.

My two favorite things to do are Volleybal and singing.

badbite,

I am a professional singer, and had a LeFort I on December 12th--FOR THE SECOND TIME! I am just now starting to feel like singing again, however I have no stamina whatsoever, because of the all-important facial muscles! Basically, after singing a short while, I get charley-horses in my cheeks! Sounds funny, but it's true.

I was actually quite happy to sing in church at all this morning. The top range...well, that will have to wait a little while longer!

Phil,

Has surgery changed your voice (nasaly or anything) at all?

badbite,

None of the surgeries I've had have changed the basic character of my voice. Most of what creates the distinctive sound of a person's voice happens in the larynx itself, and the laryngopharynx, neither of which are altered in orthognathic surgery.

How I approach the formation of vowels as well as articulation (consonants) slightly changes because of the new position of my teeth, lips and tongue in relation to each other. The mind, however, is amazingly capable of adapting to those changes, and I really don't think about it too much. In my case, the changes were fairly drastic--first, a 6mm palatal expansion (via SARPE), then 7mm mandibular setback with 3mm rotation to the left, and 5mm maxillary advancement (via LeFort I, BSSO).

I am really looking forward to some serious singing when I am completely recovered. I miss it!

Phil,

I know you have been through alot. I've seen your posts. I hope you are fully recovered soon. As for me, I am just beginning, and just the thought of singing with that expander in my mouth scares me! I sing every Sunday in church, but have told them I will "be out until further notice" after this Sunday. I already miss it.

And the Volleyball. I was just going to start palying again after alomost 8 years. I REALLY miss that, but it looks like i'll have to wait longer.

I am not up with all the surgery names. My OS wrote Lefort 1 in 2 segmants on my paper for surgery, but I will have to have the expander and turn a key. Form what I hear on this sight the two(SARPE and Lefort 1) are very similar/interchangable? After braces I will need surgery to move my upper jaw forward. I don't know what that surgery is called. That is about 18 months awy, which will just make my "jaw recovery" longer.

Boy you have had 21mm of movement in you jaws! I bet your mouth feels different. Hopefully this last surgery will be it for you!

badbite,

Technically, the surgery that you have for SARPE and maxillary advancement are both the same--LeFort I osteotomy. For the SARPE surgery, though, the fracture is NOT complete. They just fracture the main buttresses on either side, and the midline suture in the palate. Everything is still attached to the rest of you! When you will have the maxillary advancement, the upper arch will be completely separated from the skull, advanced, and then held in place with titanium bone plates.

I have had both of these surgeries, in addition to the BSSO to setback my mandible. The SARPE surgery was pretty much a piece of cake for me. Expanding was uncomfortable, but temporary and manageable.

I wish you the best of luck in all of this!

A similar question:

I am a runner (just on roads and treadmills - no trails) and I will be having BSSO in a few months. To those runners out there who have had this surgery, how long was it until you felt comfortable getting back into running a few miles?

I tried running after two weeks or so, and it would have been fine, except that I had a bone graft taken from my hip and I had a bit of an ache there when I tried to run. So as long as you're not having a bone graft I would think you should be able to run after about two weeks.

Running might depend on your surgery. My OS said nothing jarring for first four weeks, including running. So no jogging for me for another two weeks