Did you have an easier time of talking after the surgery?

[MeanCactus]

So I have an underbite, it's not like super bad but it's noticeable. Luckily I'm getting it fixed on the 27th of this month so just kinda waiting around until then. But yeah as the topic title says did you have an easier time of talking after getting your jaw surgery? Was it hard for you to say anything before getting the surgery done? Maybe I just have a speech impediment, but I'll trip over my words sometimes if I start talking too fast. Like it'll an entire sentence will come out all strong up together and you can barely tell that I said separate words.

Sorry if this may be gross, but I think the issue is that due to my jutting lower jaw I can build up spit sometimes and not really notice it or the movement of my tongue will get interfered with by my top row of teeth or something. At least that's how it feels whenever I trip up when saying something. idk does anyone do the same kinda thing?

[Rizzie]

I think we all develop adaptive behaviors that help us cope with the dysfunction in out jaws. In many cases, we don't even realize it's an adaptive behavior, it is just "how we are". For orthognathic surgery patients, our braces tend to make things worse before surgery, so right now you are at the peak of adapting to an abnormal bite/jaw structure.

I had a deep impinging overbite and overjet that was quite pronounced before surgery. I had to bring my lower lip up and over, so to speak, to close my mouth. I've noticed this mouth posture on almost all pre-surgery overbite/gummy smile patients.

The good news is, that after surgery everything will be aligned the way it should be. It may take a while to adjust to your new bite, but you will be adapting to a properly structured jaw, and your chewing and speech will normalize. If you have learned to talk fast, before you build up too much saliva, you may have to retrain yourself to slow down, but I think that will happen automatically during recovery, because you will be banded and sore.

Good luck, you have a lot of May buddies to cheer you on!

[gavinfilan]

I had surgery for an underbite (and other stuff) about 2 months ago. Talking is actually a bit of a challenge now...my tongue isn't used to the new setup and as a consequence I've acquired a major lisp. I didn't have any speech problems pre-surgery.

[sarahorsomeone]

My speech definitely improved after-surgery, and after braces.

Before I had braces I had quite a speech impediment, I couldn't make 'm' or 'p' sounds and all my speech sounded quite garbled because my teeth stuck out so much I couldn't move my lips properly. I was supposed to have speech therapy at one point but that never happened due to the circumstances at the time. It was bad enough that I had a lot of trouble communicating with people who didn't know me, and people would tend to assume I was stupid.

This was dramatically improved by the time I'd finished my first round of braces. I still had a tiny bit of trouble with 'm' and 'p' but nothing to the degree I did before. The biggest issue still remaining was that, due to my lip incompetence, I had to have a completely straight, serious face in order to be able to speak properly. Even the slightest hint of a smile would make me start slurring my words.

Now, after surgery, my speech is almost normal and improving all the time. There was a big difference within a few days of surgery even though my face was still swollen and my lips stiff.

[TheDude]

I have an under bite and braces, I feel like I can't project my voice very well and this makes it harder to speak in discussions with a group of people or in pubs/clubs and makes it easier for people to talk over you.

This, combined with the fact that I would be a little bit self conscious about my mouth and smiling doesn't help in social situations.

I am really hoping my double jaw surgery will help my speech and my voice projection..

[MeanCactus]

The dude I know all about that! It sucks because sometimes people think I come across as timid or week but I'm not really a shy person at all. It's just hard to say things loud enough or with the right inflection sometimes.