June/July 2015 Surgery Buddies

[jaime]

Gruntled, my surgery was free but I don't like to rub it in too much around the Americans.

Well guys and girls, the surgical hook karma fairy got me today. Yesterday I went to my orthodontist to get my 2 temporary hooks made permanent. They said they were waiting on a fax from my surgeon but it never came, so they did the 2 hooks and sent me on my way. It was uncomfortable but doable.

Today my ortho's office called and said they finally got a hold of my surgeon and he actually wants more new hooks! So off I went to the ortho, to find out my surgeon wanted 8 new hooks. They took my arch wires off and removed the Kobayashi hooks he did yesterday (I learned that term today).

He installed the 8 surgical hooks on the arch wires and do I even get the pretty little cute things everyone else seems to get? No sir, I have these gigantic, metal ugly things with big, ugly metal bases making my discrete ceramic brackets pointless. Having my very tender lips poked and pulled was awful, not to mention they kept resting their fingers on my very tender chin and pressing into the incision lines.

The whole thing was nearly an hour.

Icing on the cake: I think the assistant working on me was new because I didn't recognize her and she didn't know anything about me or my treatment. "Oh, so you had surgery then? Are you still swollen?"

The only good to come out of it is that I still only have 2 elastics, and it won't change until I see my surgeon on Monday (presumably).

Thanks for letting me rant...I feel like it ruined my day but I'm probably being melodramatic.

[snapdresser]

Gruntled - You know, that all seems fairly fluid. The plates are fixed. No bone is moving around. The pulling to one side is probly just stress on the muscle on the side that has elastics. I wouldn't stress out about it. The elastics aren't gonna move those plates. Cost-wise, my surgery was fairly cheap. I'll let y'all know the final cost when I get the bill, but it shouldn't be anything like what those who get it done outside of insurance pay.

Jaime - Haha surgical hooks FTW! I tried uploading a pic here once (my X-ray after you posted yours) but it was too big. Otherwise I'd show you my situation. The metal sounds like what you're dealing with. But pretty much every single tooth has a hook. And every single hook has at least 1 elastic on it. We'll see if you can beat me I hear ya about them pulling on your lips. Chapstick doesn't do much when they're jamming their fingers into your incisions My surgeon was always pulling on stuff painfully, but that was only for 5 min or so! An hour?? Fuhgeddaboudit! I'm sure it's good to be home tho, eh?

[jaime]

Fortunately I had been invited over to a friend's house, so I went over there and chatted with her and our mutual friend for a couple hours. Helped take my mind off things. One of my group of friends is retired and we all share an old lady hobby (how we met), so I will be seeing them LOTS while I'm off work. It's one great benefit to all this, since I don't normally see them very often, since they do everything during the day while us poor folk work.


Yes Gruntled, try not to worry too much about feeling like your bite is off. My ortho says everything is still very pliable right now, and you're fewer days out of surgery than I am so that's especially true. Nothing is set in stone (bone?) yet!

[Nozzelnut]

I've decided I'm not going to worry about my bite until all swelling is gone. I have a decent amount in the TMJ area and it's pressing on my ear a little. I can feel it pushing my jaw just a little bit. I can't really see how my molars are lining up anyway...

I really want 5 sausage biscuits (maybe 6) from McDonalds right now....

Or that bacon double cheese burger I've been wanting for several days.

Protein shakes or peanut butter only go so far.

The good news is the bruising is starting to break up a bit and has gone from a dark yellow to a light yellow.

[Pavlidja]

So I'm 5 days post op now and starting to feel a whole lot better only today. I think the first few days are the worst as you and your body are adjusting to what its gone through.
First few days were standard although i managed to figure out how to drink through a cup straight away and no im an expert at chugging soup or anything I can get into a cup for that matter.
I'm eating yoghurt and downing porridge with honey for breakfast now instead of soup soup soup. I also tried to eat a soft boiled egg I mushed with olive oil and lemon but that was a struggle. I couldn't chew the egg properly and swallowed most of it whole also my mouth does not chew the same, this meant I bit on the wrong angle and the pain and feeling terrified me!

The pain has only levelled off today and i have only taken ibuprofen's for the day and i'm looking forward to finishing off my antibiotics tomorrow! The night before was my worst one and i woke out of a deep sleep in a lot of pain and took the hard stuff to get me relaxed again. Last night was a lot better and tolerable. Still hard to find a comfortable sleeping position without sleeping on my face.
By the second day I had feeling return to the right side of my face but not the left (?) my tongue and lips are mostly numb still but I can feel little electric jolts throughout the days and nights. I think my incisions are healing up nice, I feel the need to stretch my mouth/lips more which feels good instead of hurting. The only thing im getting now are light burning tingles and bruising feeling around my mouth and jaw.

I've been looking at my face to see if there is anything different yet but i think its too early to call it as the swelling is still in full force and probably only starting to calm down now. I can feel how far the teeth have gone forward and for the first time in my life my teeth match up. I can't wait to eat a sandwich and see that both top and bottom bread slices are consumed equally instead of making a mess
The only thing im a bit concerned about is a piece of cartilage or plastic or something sitting i'm my rear nasal cavity. It doesn't hurt but its unnerving having bits hang off you.

[snapdresser]

Jaime - What's your old lady hobby? Knitting I'm guessing?

Nozzelnut - Probly a good approach it seems to take a week and a half or more for the swelling to go down enough to bring your teeth together WITH a gazillion elastics. I think the jury is still out in this thread on how long it takes without all the elastics. I feel ya about the eating. Always hungry

Pavlidja - Congrats on getting through the hard part! Now you just gotta chill and wait for the swelling to go down. That sounds really disturbing about the thing in the back of your nose You should probly talk to your surgeon about that! Maybe it's like the septum that Nozzelnut had popped back into place? What makes you think it's cartilage or plastic rather than just dried blood or something?

[gruntled]

Jaime, that sounds like a really horrible experience I hate bad trips to the ortho and yours sounds like it really took the cake. Hopefully you feel better now!

My mum asked me the same thing today re: swelling: "are you still swollen?" It's been 7 days since my op . My mum thinks it's just fat now though, and there's no convincing her it's not!

Snap, I can't believe you have so many elastics! Sounds horrible I only have two, one on either side! EOS has been my absolute saviour for my poor flaky lips.


Thanks for the reassurance guys, it made me feel a lot better. I had my first follow up today and the ortho said the same thing. I've now got replacement elastics plus a little baggie of extra ones just in case! The downside is that I can't open my mouth at all again because the new elastics are firmer than the old ones.

Nozzel, that is the story of my life right now. I keep seeing delicious food and absolutely dying for it...I've three more weeks of liquid diet to go...


Pavlidja, that bit of plastic or whatever doesn't sound good at all! I would certainly bring it up with your ortho next time you see them.

[Nozzelnut]

Pavlidja; is it thread from stitches? or dried blood? Is it in your nose or your mouth?

[Pavlidja]

Nozzelnut: Ok so TMI time, so I can get my tongue into my nasal cavity like inside my mouth and that's where I can feel it. I will bring it up with the surgeon but given the position its probably close to where the bone was cut to move my upper jaw. Its not painful for now but I know i'm not healed yet so I will wait to see what my surgeon says on Monday. Its feels very thin almost like a bit of plastic that may be from the sutures, its roundish and a few mm wide I guess. Be interesting to hear what the surgeon has to say and hopefully its just roughness from the incisions.
I shouldn't be poking around in there anyway haha

[Nozzelnut]

Unless you have a cleft palate there's really no way for you to put your tongue in your nasal cavity.

Maybe around the back of you molars? Or through them when you open a bit?

Guessing it's just the stitches

[SampMitch]

Hey snap! That's so funny because the in network doctor that I found/who I was talking about was Tracey Rosenberg!!! But she admitted she wasn't really comfortable doing a 3 piece and raved about Schwartz!

[snapdresser]

Gruntled - Lol at your mom. That's pretty funny I kinda feel like it's hard to tell what's swelling and what's not. My surgeon today said I still have a fair bit of swelling in my cheeks but she could have convinced me otherwise. But yeah, only 7 days out? Just wait for another week and you're gonna start seeing some nice results I've been using the Aquaphor ointment on my lips. Seems to work fine. Still, you should see the epic ridges I have all along the inside of my lips from all these dang elastics Oh, and those tighter elastics are going to be a recurring thing for a couple more weeks there, so get used to periods of overly-tight elastics

Pavlidja - If I put my tongue up to the roof of my mouth, at the back of my palette is a kind of bony nodule that fits your description and extends back toward my throat. Could that be what you're feeling? Or you're sure it's not at the rear end of your palette? You should have a lot of soft tissues separating your tongue from your nasal cavity back behind your palette...

SampMitch - Whaaaaat??? You're putting me on! You live and work in the city and you went out to Plainview to find an in-network surgeon? Why??

[Nozzelnut]

If anyone has a Taco Bell around; they have refried beans for about $.25/small container; mix with 3 hot sauces. Might be off menu and it's different than their pintos and cheese.

Changes it up a little bit from the all sweet shakes.

[jaime]

I was actually going to make a soup this weekend that has refried beans in it. Is it easy for you to eat that, Nozzel? I feel like the consistency is still a little too thick for me just yet.

Hope everyone's feeling good today!

Good day today here. Everything is getting slightly easier each day. I can actually swish the chlorhexidine around in my mouth now, instead of pouring it in and it escaping immediately.

My chin is by far and away the most painful part of all this. I don't know how many others got the sliding genio (I know Snap did), but it sucks. It's constantly throbbing.

My teeth are also getting sensitive, too. The tooth that anchors both elastics hurts like a sonofa when I take the elastics off.

[Nozzelnut]

The consistency is pretty good; easy to swallow. I might mix in some rice to get the perfect protein of rice and beans


I had the sliding genio too.

I've been pushing it a bit with foods and working muscles in and around my mouth. Moving my lips as much as possible; filling my cheeks with air and holding it, duck lips.... Stuff like that. Not to the point that anything hurts or making anything bleed but enough to stretch a little and move the swelling some...