JUNE BUDDIES!!!

Message

#61 Post by **anna1222** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:45 am

Me too.... Mine is tomorrow. Ek!

#62 Post by **Chefflaco88** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 12:47 am

Today is the day! See you on the other side!

#63 Post by **MetalMedic** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 5:07 am

Good luck!!!!!

#64 Post by **mountaingirl** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:46 pm

Hopefully I can sit long enough at the computer without passing out!

I get the dizzies a lot from the meds.

I have to say this surgery was more difficult than I expected. Actually, I knew it would be difficult but it was different than I thought. The pain is a lot more than I expected. From the posts on the board, it seems like most people manage the pain well. I have to take Dilaudid, and Advil regularly and if I'm late I'm in quite a bit of discomfort. My surgery was on Wed, so I thought by day 5 it would be less than this.

My face was huge. I expected that. I have a lot of bruising on my face and neck. Doesn't bother me, really. I am having a hard time standing up well for any length of time so have only managed to have one bath so far. I know a shower won't work for me at this point. Not having a shower every day is yucky.

I don't remember anything that happened when I finished my surgery. I recall my stay at the hospital the first night was awful. I kept getting nausea because the nasogastric tube got plugged up with thick blood and they had to manually flush it every hour. If the didn't I'd get sick. I was in pain, getting nosebleeds and pretty miserable. I also had to express breast milk so I could keep my milk for after I'd recovered, so there I was feeling like crap and tying to sit up to pump milk. Between that and the nurse giving me three meds at once (morphine, gravol and ativan) my blood pressure dropped and I felt sick, sweaty and had heart palpitations. All I remember is pressing the emerg button and woke up with 6 nurses around me. Apparently I fainted. I stayed a second night which wasn't as bad as the first, and almost stayed a third night. I guess I'm wimpy cuz lots of people go home the next day!

I'm wondering if my pain now is from muscle spasms? The ice helps a bit. I tried heat, but that did not help at all. I'm looking forward to getting these wires cut and eating real food. I've lost 5 pounds already.

If I'm lucky the doctor will take them off tomorrow (day 6) but I won't hold my breath.

When do people find they stop taking the pain meds? I know it's different for everyone, but I'm hoping to be off them soon. I hate feeling so out of it.

I can't wait until this is all way in the past!

#65 Post by **MetalMedic** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:59 am

mountaingirl wrote:Hopefully I can sit long enough at the computer without passing out! I get the dizzies a lot from the meds.

I have to say this surgery was more difficult than I expected. Actually, I knew it would be difficult but it was different than I thought. The pain is a lot more than I expected. From the posts on the board, it seems like most people manage the pain well. I have to take Dilaudid, and Advil regularly and if I'm late I'm in quite a bit of discomfort. My surgery was on Wed, so I thought by day 5 it would be less than this.

My face was huge. I expected that. I have a lot of bruising on my face and neck. Doesn't bother me, really. I am having a hard time standing up well for any length of time so have only managed to have one bath so far. I know a shower won't work for me at this point. Not having a shower every day is yucky.

I don't remember anything that happened when I finished my surgery. I recall my stay at the hospital the first night was awful. I kept getting nausea because the nasogastric tube got plugged up with thick blood and they had to manually flush it every hour. If the didn't I'd get sick. I was in pain, getting nosebleeds and pretty miserable. I also had to express breast milk so I could keep my milk for after I'd recovered, so there I was feeling like crap and tying to sit up to pump milk. Between that and the nurse giving me three meds at once (morphine, gravol and ativan) my blood pressure dropped and I felt sick, sweaty and had heart palpitations. All I remember is pressing the emerg button and woke up with 6 nurses around me. Apparently I fainted. I stayed a second night which wasn't as bad as the first, and almost stayed a third night. I guess I'm wimpy cuz lots of people go home the next day!

I'm wondering if my pain now is from muscle spasms? The ice helps a bit. I tried heat, but that did not help at all. I'm looking forward to getting these wires cut and eating real food. I've lost 5 pounds already. If I'm lucky the doctor will take them off tomorrow (day 6) but I won't hold my breath.

When do people find they stop taking the pain meds? I know it's different for everyone, but I'm hoping to be off them soon. I hate feeling so out of it.

I can't wait until this is all way in the past!

Heyyy!! Yeah, you're going to feel pain up to atleast a week after. The pain from the surgery for me is now gone, I'm now feeling the discomfort from muscles spasism and soreness. I'm taking advil and ocassionally if that and heat doesnt work, Ill take a little dilaudid with it to ease it. Mostly 9/10 it works fine with advil and heat. Don't go cold turkey with the pain meds, you need to slowly wean yourself off the dilaudid...you'll feel better that way.

Dont use too much heat at first until your swelling has gone down significantly or alteast stopped rising. Cold is best to keep the swelling down, but as long as that has stopped rising or is now beginning to go down use cold. Once it has settled, use heat.

Everyone has different experiences in the hospital. They took my NG tube out before I woke up, though I wish they would have kept it in. All through out the night I kept getting neauseous and started vomiting due to the blood in my stomach. Awful experience. Pretty much dissapeared by the next day with zofran, reglan and compazine. I also developed a little rash from something while in anhesthesia, so they gave me some antihistamine concoction to drink. Yeah, wont be doing that anymore since it cause my heart rate to rocket to 150 while just laying in bed. That too passed after an hour.

So everyone has different experiences and complications. I was tempted to staying another night, but I just wanted to get home. Hang in there, you'll feel millions better when you get unwired.

Oh last thing. TAKE pain meds before your unwiring appointment. TRUST ME. Advil and dilaudid... I wish I did.

#66 Post by **mountaingirl** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 12:16 pm

I was unwired today and it didn't hurt a bit! I was even due for my pain meds. Weird how we're all different, huh? Thanks for the advice re weening off Dilaudid. I think I will do that.

That's terrible about the vomiting MetalMedic. I was sooo thankful for the nasogastric tube otherwise I would have thrown up so many times. I can't imagine throwing up but it must have been just awful.

Keep us posted everyone!

#67 Post by **mountaingirl** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:09 pm

I've been having really strange ear problems since the surgery. My ears are so sensitive to noise and I can hear everything. My husband cracked a coke in the next room and the fizz from the can was hurting my ears. Every noise bothers me. Anyone else have this??

#68 Post by **anna1222** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:50 pm

I feel that too actually... I'm sensitive to every sound. My husband and his friend were eating something lastnight and the sound of th knife against was driving me nuts. I wonder what that is?

#69 Post by **anna1222** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:52 pm

* knife against the plate

#70 Post by **mountaingirl** » Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:32 am

yay, anna's back! tell us about your surgery when you're up to it! welcome to the other side.

#71 Post by **bracesat30** » Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:50 am

I've been posting separate posts here, but figured I should probably join on to the June thread, seeing as everything was done just over a week ago! So to give you an update:

I had upper and lower done last Monday, June 21st. They brought my lower jaw forward by 5mm, and tilted my upper jaw down (not sure how far right now?). At first they were considering a genioplasty, but I ended up not having it done.

I can honestly say, I wish that I had spent more time on here beforehand to get a better grasp of what to expect, and I wish I had been more mentally prepared for it, as it really knocked me over! The first week was very bad, but I do find things are improving, and everything is in such a measure of time. I'm currently 9 days post-op, and my biggest issue right now is that I'm feeling more pain now than I did last week I think because of gaining more sensitivity back. I was taking liquid tylenol and naproxen for the first week, but was avoiding the hydromorphone, but finally gave it to that two days ago, and wondered why I had been avoiding it to this point.

The other thing that is driving me crazy is that my OS didn't want to see me for two full weeks to allow enough time for everything to start healing properly; so I don't go in for my first post-op appt until next Tuesday, and the thought of how far away that is really drags me down. I'm tightly banded, I believe there's wiring in there, and the splint, so absolutely no movement whatsoever. Was anyone else immobilized this much for 2 weeks after the surgery?

And just to add insult to injury, I'm fighting a head cold now! Coughing is a whole new experience! It's really a lot of fun being woken up by coughing like crazy and not being able to catch my breath properly!

Anyhow, I know I will be happier down the road; I just wish I could gather a little more PATIENCE!

So I should have posted on this thread long before now, but at least I'm doing it now!

#72 Post by **anna1222** » Wed Jun 30, 2010 10:41 am

Yay!! I am now on the other side! Thanks mountaingirl.

So, my surgery went according to plan. My surgery was at 12 on June 28th. I got back home
around 7ish. My husband tucked me into bed and I pretty much slept for 24 hours. I have
lots of swelling on the lower part of my face - I only had a genioplasty. I look like the lower
part of my face was squashed into a square mold. The swelling has gone down a bit, but not
a lot. Maybe tomorrow.

I have a bit of numbness. I can feel my lower lip but not my chin, mostly on the right side.
My lower teeth are really sore too.

The worst pain was my throat from the tube they stuck down it while I was sleeping. Ouch.

Other than that everything is going well. Had some icecream today... mmmmm

#73 Post by **mountaingirl** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:42 am

That's amazing you were in and out so fast anna. Are you able to tell at all if you like it? With my swelling it looks like me wearing a fat suit. I'm so glad it went down fast!

bracesat30: I was wired for 6 days only and am wearing elastics now. I think surgeons and different and so is each case.

#74 Post by **anna1222** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:03 pm

I think I like it, it's really hard to tell with all the swelling. What did you do to help with the swelling??

#75 Post by **mountaingirl** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:48 pm

I slept upright for 6 or 7 days and that seemed to help. My surgeon was surprised how fast my swelling went down. And I iced and iced, drank lots of water.