Well, Tomorrow a.m. Upper Jaw Surgery!

[JennX]

From what I've been reading here and on other forums, it seems like there is a pretty huge range of doctoral advice out there!

[IamHustla]

good luck to ya hope you have a speedy recover

[Andantae]

sspidermom!

Hi there!!! I was driving back to Mpls on I-35 today and HONESTLY thought of you as I remembered that the 22nd was your surgery day. I am SO GLAD to hear you are doing so well!

Also, check for sure with your doc, but usually after the first 48-72 hours of icing you can switch from ice to warmth to increase blood flow and soothe the muscles ease any discomfort.

You are QUITE the trooper posting so soon! Let us know how your next days go if you are up to it!

[loulou123]

welcome back, so glad it sounds like it all went very well too

My surgeon has the same thoughts as meryatens that, i needed to be up and about as soon as poss, and going out for walks etc too, as it helps recovery. Mine also wouldnt even allow me a pen and paper let alone a white board and told me there was absouletely no reason i couldnt talk straight away , mind you i think i begain moaning within a few minutes of coming round anyway lol!

[ssspidermom]

Hi all, Thanks for your comments.

I didn't sleep much last night. I'm like a little baby, up every hour or so, needing to eat or drink. The hardest part is swallowing. My throat is sore from the intubation, and my mouth is all swollen and my nose is VERY stuffy, so it is hard to breathe and swallow. So I can only drink about 2 oz. at a time. Weird. I have theoe cool Zip N Squeeze bags which help. I also drool a lot while I eat, because I can't close my lips. But I just tuck a bunch of tissues into my jaw bra and do the best I can.

I actually feel quite good most of the time. But my life revolves around eating (which for now, means drinking Boost or blended soups, and juice/water). It consumes my day (so to speak). I am also on a complicated self-care routine, with lots of different creams (one for my face - homeopathic, and one for my lips - a steroid for swelling) and oral arnica, pain med., decongestant, all at different times and needing to be taken with food (except the arnica). And I have to brush my teeth several times a day and spray 2 nasal sprays also. I made a big schedule to keep it all straight, which helps.

My nose is really swollen inside and out. They attached the metal places under my nose, so it went through some major trauma. It bleeds whenever I lean forward. But I just keep my head back and I'm fine. That only took a couple times to figure out!

I see the surgeon at 11 a.m. today for a checkup.

[Delag]

You really are a marvel! It sounds like you are doing very well. Don't worry, the drooling, slurping and dripping will all get better soon. Hope everything went well at your appointment today.

[ssspidermom]

I passed out in the chair at my post-op appointment today. It was really scary. My husband said it looked like I was having a seizure, because I was trying to get out of the chair and moving. The nurse was pretty shook up. She called in the doc and he asked about what I had eaten and drank (lots of Boost, and tons of water) and checked my pulse, which was about 40 bpm. It slowly came back up and I woke up, but felt really yucky. They didn't really have an explanation. But several people told me they passed out after general anesthesia. The nurse was so upset she forgot to give me my rubberbands. She looked a little shakey herself! Later, at home, I was lying down the whole day, and after sleeping for about 2 hours, I woke up feeling like I was going to pass out again. I didn't this time. Took Rescue Remedy (a homeopathic to help with trauma and stress), drank some water and got a cool wet rag on my forehead, but felt bad for about an hour.

Did anyone else have this problem?

On a brighter note, I can drink from a cup now, and eat from a spoon! I also slept really really well last night and can breathe through my nose better. I'm less swollen also!

Oh yeah! I have a blog: theadventuresofspidermom.blogspot.com
Check it out! Probably not any new info. but some photos!

[Arvensis]

I passed out trying to stand up from the recliner chair about two days after I went home (4-5 days after op?) - the problem was that I'd had too much water and there was like no salt in me at all and my blood pressure was low. Salt affects lots of things; my mother (whom I was staying with post-op) is on a low sodium diet for ear issues and has similar normal blood pressure to mine explained it but I was still rather drugged.

Anyway, I ordered egg drop soup from the Chinese place down the street and drank it, and that really solved the issue. Boost has like no sodium content at all. You need electrolytes, perhaps gatorade or the like if you can't eat warm foods yet?

[ssspidermom]

3 weeks out as of Tues. and I think I heard about a 3 week wall? I woke up crying. I'm feeling really bummed and I don't know why. Maybe it is related to the steroids still? Or the anesthesia? I am doing really well in recovering, feeling more energetic each day, no more bruising, getting more feeling back all the time, more range of motion in my jaw, eating well, chewing more and more stuff.

I have arch bars, weird little twisty ties around each tooth, holding a metal arch with hooks on it to hold my rubber bands (I don't don't wear braces - my jaw moved over the last 3 years due to condylar degeneration in the joint, so my teeth lined up after surgery). I get them taken off on Monday. My OS is very pleased. Said they got a good tight fit in my jaw, which was raised, - no risk of non-union, he said.

I did get a bad case of seasonal allergies (a North Carolina gift to all residents!), so maybe that has been down a little.

Any support would be appreciated. I hate to whine, especially when everything is going so well, but I am just feeling so down![/img]

[Andantae]

Woke up crying? Not good!


I have missed hearing about your progress, but am SO GLAD to hear that your OS is so pleased.

Do you have someone who you can talk to about this as much as you need to? You just went through a pretty big surgery, and I have been told by a good friend of mine ( a nurse anesthetist) that it can take up to a year for someone to fully recover from the effects of surgery. Those effects can manifest themselves very differently from individual to individual and I think what you are experiencing is pretty normal. Many here have talked about hitting 'The Wall' in the weeks following surgery. It's not uncommon AT ALL.

In fact, I just went and got my book, The Healing Jaw, written by the nurse who developed zip-n-squeeze. There is an entire page entitled, Recovery, Feeling The Blues.

Here's what she has to say in the first paragraph:

..."After maxillary trauma or reconstructive jaw surgery, it is not uncommon to experience a wide variety of feelings or emotions. This emotional time may surface a few days after surgery, a few weeks, or it may not happen at all, it depends on the person. This point in your recovery is often referred to by patients as feeling the blues or hitting the wall and simply means a point in which you feel you've just had enough! These emotions can be characterized by feelings of frustration, helplessness, despair, depression and often feelings of anger. All this is perfectly normal and these feelings should not try to be avoided. This point in recovery can actually be very therapeutic and often patients begin to feel a lot better as soon as this bottled up emotion is released!"
I hope this helps, Sspidermom, especially the last sentence! Hang in there!

[ssspidermom]

Thanks Andantae, that paragraph from the book IS very helpful. Maybe I'll order that book.

And yes, I have some good people to talk to about all this. And in addition to the surgery, I was moping around all day yesterday, and then my 19 year old daughter who is just home from college, called. She had fallen off a horse and hurt her shoulder pretty badly. After the required 3 + hours in the emergency room, they confirmed what I thought- a broken collar bone, pretty displaced. She is now on heavy pain meds and VERY dependent on us for everything. She won't be able to move that arm for 3 weeks, no driving for 8 weeks, and the very worst for her, no horseback riding for 3 months - that's her whole summer! It was really hard seeing her in pain, and it triggered some of my experiences with surgery. So I'm glad my sweet husband met us at the hospital. I am still not back to my previous energy level, and now have a child to care for. I am going to rest while she is resting, just like I did when I had little children instead of 4 teenagers!

I will be happy when I start feeling more normal again. The numbness is getting less and less, but it is really annoying me. I didn't really think about that part before the surgery, I just thought about how nice that immediately afterward I wouldn't feel the surgical site. But the numbness is very distracting to me. I'm not sure if anyone else found this to be the case.

Thanks for the kind words.

[Delag]

3 weeks sound aobut right. I am sorry to hear you are having such a hard time right now. You are such a wonderful person and are always among the fisrt here on AW to offer help and encouragement. I think after a few weeks you just get worn down. Every night you go to sleep thinking, 'tomorrow I am going to feel so much better', and then you wake up and are still numb, have lower energy, and after 3 weeks you are expected to cook food for everyone else (that you can't eat), and be back to normal in everyone elses eyes. It is hard. You want to be normal but still need more time to heal and get all those toxins out of your system. Can you take a little time to pamper yourself? I know you have to take care of your dd now, but instead of ironing - send it out and watch a movie....order Chinese food instead of cooking and relax with a book. And if your dd gets snippy (as they all do) stick some headphones in your ears - you have my permission

I also am finding the numbness to be a royal pain, and I don't even have that much of it. I miss feeling both my lips when I kiss my little ones goodnight. I miss testing how hot my coffee is with my upper lip before I take a too big gulp. I miss being able to smile and feel how big I am smiling. I miss being able to feel if I have food stuck. I miss being able to lick my lips and being able to smack my lips together to get the lipstick just right. I agree, the numbness is really annoyning

[Andantae]

How ya doin' sspidermom?

[ssspidermom]

Delag and Andantae,

Thanks for the encouragement! I am doing much better now!! I had my arch bars removed a week ago, and was put under "twilight" anesthesia. I had a bad reaction to the laughing gas, and felt really gross for a couple days. But now I am noticing steady progress, both emotionally and physically. Today I cut down tons of bamboo that is growing along side our fence, and hauled it out to the curb. It is gorgeous weather here now, and was nice to be outside.

Prior to surgery, I had condylar degeneration, which caused my open bite, exaggerated my tongue thrust, and I developed a lisp. The lisp has gone away now, on its own I am so happy about that. I am a speech pathologist, and work with kids who lisp. It has been very difficult to help them when I can't make a clear "S" sound, so I am very pleased with the spontaneous remission of my lisp. I was expecting speech therapy and exercises to make it better, but I won't need any of that now.

Thanks again for your kindness and concern.

[nullalux]

Glad to hear from you on the other side! Sending healing thoughts your way. Keep us posted.