Found a Zip N Squeeze alternative!!

[Catwmn]

I'm scheduled for surgery over the summer and since Zip N Squeeze is out of business I searched high and low for an alternative and FOUND one!

Check it out!

http://www.craniorehab.com/Wired-Jaw-Co ... _p_99.html

It's a pretty complete kit for jaw surgery recovery.

Hope this can help some of you who are having surgery before me!

Cat

[Laundraholic]

It's good that there is an alternative out there, but OMG... expensive!

The Zip-N-Squeeze set I ordered was around $21 USD.
I know that's meaningless now if peopel are unable to order it, but at least it seemed reasonable price-wise (as some people said they didn't end up using it, and some found it more useful than others).

[Catwmn]

I think you can order JUST the bags and not the whole set. I am ordering the whole set though because the bottles will be useful for rinsing and drinking, and the jaw bra I haven't found anywhere else. Also, the bags are not reusable for sanitation purposes so I would imagine you would need quite a few of them.

Also, I could see the bags coming in handy for those of us who want to prepare several days worth of foods ahead of time and then freeze. Just drop the bags into a pot of hot water to heat and eat.

[Rizzie]

Thanks so much for that link--I have bookmarked it. My time is coming up quickly..late April or May.

[mine]

Before my surgery, after searching high and low, i found out that you can find the same exact bottles on just regular online retailers like amazon, labeled as "wash bottles". Turns out these are used in labs to clean glassware (source Wikipedia). They're super cheap too. I got some (labeled Ethanol just for laughs) and they work well. I had to cut off the tip a little bit to increase flow. They're made of low density polyethylene which appears to be food safe according to wikipedia. Hope that helps!

[sauerkraut]

You'd be surprised how soon you can drink from a cup and/or use a teaspoon. I'm really not convinced expensive specialist gear is necessary. Even when tightly banded immediately after surgery I managed OK with a toddler-type sipper cup (without a valve) and soon progressed to a normal drinking glass. The narrow plastic teaspoons provided free by our local ice-cream parlour also came in very handy.

I prepared loads of individual portions of soup and froze them in small containers. I preferred to re-heat them in a saucepan as I found I often needed to add a little more liquid. It was still very quick to prepare.

Instead of a jaw bra I used a muslin square (diaper!) to tie frozen gel packs round my face. Not as convenient but again it did the job OK