My Surgery DISASTER!

Message

Sat Nov 15, 2008 5:30 am

Hi all,

I had BSSO surgery on Thursday on my upper joint to cure fix overbite. I was really worried about the surgery but all went well, or so i thought! However when my surgeon came to see me on the ward the next day he advised me the jaw on the right side had broken in two places instead of one!

. I'm now having to wear vertical elastics from top to bottom of my teeth (across 4 of them not all the way around, thank god!) my surgeon says this may have to be for upto 6 weeks, and if this doesn't work he will have to go in from the 'outside' of my face and re-operarate!

I'm really upset as i was scared enough and wasn't explained that this could happen as part of the risks. I'm really regretting having the work done at all.

Is this a common occurrence? Is my surgeon to blame? Has this happened to anyone on here?

Thanks.

#2 Post by **Kerry** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 9:14 am

i think em was saying hers was broken in more than one place, hopefully your heal up fine bone tends to fill in and harden again so if they have fixed it together well you should have a problem.

Just do as the doc said and be very carefull make sure you eat well plenty of protein if you can with your liquid diet and plenty of milky products will be good aswell.

dont panic too much yet im sure everything will be fine but it is his duty to make you aware of everthing and he is probably just telling you out of precaution worst case senario. x

Sat Nov 15, 2008 10:14 am

Thanks Kerry

Worst case scenario would have to going under the knife again...especially as he said he would have to go via the outside ! I have swelling on the right hand of my face but overall the swelling isn't too bad he commented on this too. I can actually feel the double break on the outside of my face towards my upper right hand jaw.

Hopefully it'll fix of it's own accord i don't understand why he would have to go to the opposite side of my face to rectify the double break

#4 Post by **ema27** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:20 am

Hi my jaw was broke in 5 places after surgery but i knew this before surgery.well i knew it would be at least 3!.
Sometimes they have to break the bone a few more times in order for the jaw to sit proper.dont worry it should heal.I have a tad more swelling on my left side due to this but the braces ae coming off on dec 3 so it worked out well in the end..

#5 Post by **Emaciated** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 1:24 pm

Yea, I was told my top would be a one piece and when I woke up it had become a 3 piece on the spot. I'm glad they did that though because they got a nearly perfect fit and I was out of braces 4 months later. I was also told pre-surgery that sometimes during a BSSO they start cutting the bone on some people and it just completely shatters due to weak bone structure or genetics or something. But they followed that up with the fact that its very very rare and when it does happen they just patch the person up and they typically heal just fine. It just means the person has more rubber bands or has to wear a splint for longer. Nonetheless I drank more milk that week.

#6 Post by **suetemi** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:28 pm

KarlClayLA wrote:Yea, I was told my top would be a one piece and when I woke up it had become a 3 piece on the spot.

I'm confused. I thought the OP was talking about the jaw being broken into pieces unintentionally, as opposed to an intentional (like a single piece vs. segmented Lefort) one..

#7 Post by **Emaciated** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 7:50 pm

suetemi wrote:I'm confused. I thought the OP was talking about the jaw being broken into pieces unintentionally, as opposed to an intentional (like a single piece vs. segmented Lefort) one..

Yea, that's what BracedforSurgery just experienced, in my case on the other hand it was my top jaw and it WAS intentional. I just meant that I can relate to waking up with something different then what you were expecting.

#8 Post by **suetemi** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 7:55 pm

KarlClayLA wrote:
Yea, that's what BracedforSurgery just experienced, in my case on the other hand it was my top jaw and it WAS intentional. I just meant that I can relate to waking up with something different then what you were expecting.

Oh, OK. I imagine the unintentional surprise is a lot more horrifying to wake up to.
Anyway, how's your upper jaw holding up these days? I'm about to have a 3-piece LF myself probably next month... *gulp*

Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:04 am

I've just been to visit my ortho...

turns out on the right hand side the brake actually went wrong and the whole of the upper jaw of the bone has been removed from the side of the face. so it's no longer attached at the top, simply hanging loose

. I'm having to wear strong elastics that i have to change every night myself. This is in the hope the bone can attach itself again to the facial structure. My surgeon didn't sound very hopeful of this happening, it's more of a long shot to avoid further surgery. Assuming it doesn't work he's going to have to go in again and manually attach the top of the jaw bone back to the facial structure. What a nightmare!! He said it had only happend once before in 250 ops!

Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:27 pm

Thanks Meryaten,

According to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16125398 the risk of an unfavourable split is 0.9% it only happened in 12 patients out of 1264 used in this study.

Feel angry and distressed add this onto 30 long weeks in braces i can safely say I wish i had never gone ahead with the treatment, it's been a nightmare from start to finish.

Goodness knows what will happen next

#11 Post by **kaycee** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:09 pm

Braced -

I think you may be surprised at how well the bone will heal. When do you see the surgeon again?

kaycee

Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:30 pm

I go next Monday. Have to see him every week for the next month or so. I'm not sure if it's how the bone will heal, or where it heals that is the problem.

at the moment i can only bite together on the left side, the right side it's impossible, i'm amusing due to the unfortunate break. It's hard to see how it will look cosmetically due to the swelling (i know this is normal) but it appears i know have a open bite instead of the over-bite i had before.

#13 Post by **kaycee** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:02 pm

When your orthdontist is able to resume his work, he will be able to accomplish quite a bit with rubber bands. Granted, I don't have the problems you have, but after surgery my bite was not aligned at all, my teeth touched in only place and not where planned, it was quite painful. After getting some lovely rubberbands from the ortho, probably at two weeks post op, my bite began to settle in nicely.

kaycee

#14 Post by **loulou123** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:39 pm

Hi Braced for surgery UK,

sorry to hear that things have gone wrong for you

but i do know how you feel (read my blog if you think im just saying that! lol)

My surgery was to honest abit of a shambles too, i ended up in tight bands for about 8 weeks, then needed an extra wisdom tooth taken out (that was suposed to be removed during surgery) then a 2nd op to remove one of the plates as it had become infected

all in all it was a very very rough 12 weeks for me. But i got through it as will you.

I know its tricky but trying your best to keep as positive as you can, really will help. Believe me there was times after the op id have done anything to turn back the clock and not have it done, but now im all done and the braces are off, im VERY glad i went ahead with it.

Feel free to contact me, via PM if youd like to talk or even just moan, and maybe check out my blog to see that it can all turn out ok in the end.

#15 Post by **loulou123** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:41 pm

double post