Metal Mouth Message Board

Hey everyone, it's a great feeling to finally hit the double-digit mark for days since surgery! It's been a slow but steady process, but everything is finally starting to return to normal (kind of). After surgery I couldn't feel my right cheek at all, and now it's only slightly numb (though the right side of my upper lip is still very numb). Pain is becoming much more manageable, and it really only hits me after waking up from a good night's sleep due to not having any painkillers in my system. The worst part, by far, is the liquid diet! It's been all Boost, yogurt, pudding, soda, and water for me. Not only is that getting old, but it's making me even MORE skinny than I was before. I've lost about 10 pounds already! Here are some pics:

Front:
http://i.imgur.com/b2Hadgc.jpg

Profile:
http://i.imgur.com/eoB6ZEP.jpg

Excuse the droopy eyes, I'm pretty tired from my mother waking me up because she 'thought something was wrong' (I have no clue)

In case you guys were wondering about specifics, I had a Lefort 1 osteotomy to correct my underbite & crossbite. The left side of my upper jaw was shifted forward 5mm, and the right side 7mm. This has resulted in uneven swelling, which in turn causes my nose to be a bit crooked. It's frustrating, but I know that by the month mark everything should be alright.

I guess the point of this topic is to just get the opinions of others on how I look. I've pretty much just been hanging out at my house since surgery (save one appointment), but in the coming weeks I'm definitely going to have to return to the outside world more. So how bad do I look? I'd rather not have people staring as I walk by.

I'm a year out from my Lefort.
In a year, any crookedness you probably won't notice. I didn't have uneven advancement but still had some slight crookedness in my nose I was paranoid about for months and months. And now I feel like I look so different and it feels so great I don't notice it.

Just looking at your pictures ? Why are you still in the house??!! LOL You look fine!

From experience (Upper jaw surgery December 2012), you need to be patient and wait months to see your final results. I'm seven months out and I can still tell that I have residual swelling in my nose. Just when you think your visible swelling is down (week 3 or 4) your face will change so much! I look nothing like the week 6 picures even!

Give it time. From those pictures you already look great.

Guys, this is bothering the everloving **** out of me.

Here's a day 14 pic: http://i.imgur.com/YYmgReQ.jpg

The jawline asymmetry is pretty blatant (to me, at least). My cheeks look somewhat normal, my nose looks pretty normal...but that freaking jawline. There's such an obvious discrepancy between both sides of my face. Who would've though that the jaw the surgeon DIDN'T work on would look the worst?

I'm almost 100% sure this is caused by my (previous) crossbite. My surgeon moved the right side of my maxilla further forward than the left instead of messing with my mandible, but now it just looks really strange. The right side of my lower jaw looks more chiseled, while the left side looks very rounded. I'm not sure if this is caused by bone structure or soft tissue. My mandible feels somewhat even (though this is hard to determine), while the soft tissue around it feels very different on either side. Maybe the way he moved the maxilla altered more soft tissue on one side of my face than the other?

I would ask your surgeon about it at the next appointment. Hopefully he can explain what to expect as a final result.

Once again, I would not judge how your face looks right now too much. I took pictures every day for the first 6 weeks and even when I THOUGHT the swelling was done, there were MAJOR changes to my face. If they didn't even operate on your lower jaw, it can't really look different, especially side to side. It's probably just residual swelling. I will admit that one side of my face was more swollen than the other and the puffier side remained swollen much longer. Be patient and give it time. I think it's great you feel good enough to be fussing over your look at day 14, my god, I was barely functioning at that time in my recovery.

Any update "theman"? How is the swelling going? Does the asymmetry appear to be going down?