November 2013 Surgery Buddies

[scraggy]

All the best for Monday riley3245.

[lattiee]

riley tomorrow is your day . I hope all goes well and are you spending the nite at the hospital ?

[survenant]

Good luck Riley!

[survenant]

I met with my surgeon last thursday. Mostly good news. My surgeon is impressed on how the swelling has gone down.

Bad news, I was elastic-free, now I'm not

I think I'll have to wear elastics 24/7 for the next 4 weeks.

[riley3245]

Thanks everyone. I was told that i will have to spend one night at the hospital and should be home tuesday. Just got back from buying a bunch of fruit and vegitables to juice.

survenant sorry to hear about the elastics, but at least the surgery is done.

[Alicia110613]

Riley - GL!!!

Survenant - Sorry to hear you're back in elastic world, but hey you're not the only one. Btw, when will you be starting on soft-chew diet?

[survenant]

I've already started the soft chew diet. I can eat spaghetti, lasagna, fish, etc. I don't chew much, I mostly cut down my meal in small pieces. It is a big relief.

[Alicia110613]

Wow that's fast survenant! My surgeon said he'll start me on soft-chew diet at week 3, which I thought was really early already considering most ppl I've heard waited until week 4 or week 6. Do you find chewing difficult or is your jaw/teeth sore afterwards?

[survenant]

No I don't have much pain anymore. The only bother is that I can sometimes feel my nerves "acting up" in my chin/lower jaw area.

[survenant]

I met with my ortho this morning. Mostly good news, he removed my splint and I got to finally brush my upper teeth and now I can remove my elastics when I eat. What a relief.

However, I still have some jaw asymetry (1.5 mm compared to 3.5 mm before). He thinks it's fixable with elastics.

[Alicia110613]

Had my 3-wk post-op appointment and things are going well. I'm not able to open as wide as I "should" at this point, but no other major issues. Moving onto soft-chew diet now!

[survenant]

Congrats Alicia for entering the "soft-chhew diet zone".

Are you still swollen? The surgeon and the ortho say I'm not that swollen but it feels like I look 30 pounds heavier than I really am.

[Alicia110613]

Yea I'm definitely still swollen. =\ Ppl who don't know me well prob can't really tell, but yes I used to have a really skinny face and now look about 20 lb heavier as well. I feel like it's not really going down... or just going down very, VERY slowly. We should re-assess in a few weeks. I hope the swelling will be noticeably gone by our 6-wk mark.

[riley3245]

Man I forgot how much this surgery sucks. At least its over now. The dr said they moved my jaw forward 5mm and down 1.5mm. Day 3 now and I hope the swelling has peeked. Was able to eat some pudding yesterday and today. Hope everyone else is doing well. I don't have any elastics on. Not sure whether they will be put on later or not. They said everything went perfect.

[Alicia110613]

Everyone says swelling peaks at Day 3 and I find that pretty accurate (even tho at the time, you'd wonder if your face would ever stop ballooning!) Hope you'll be able to fit some mashed potatoes in your mouth for Thanksgiving! Glad everything went well for you.

How long will you be on liquid/no chew for?