June/July 2015 Surgery Buddies

[jaime]

That's a good idea. I haven't been that adventurous yet. I whistled a lot after SARPE to help break up the scar tissue and that worked really well.

Do you find your chin throbs too?

Snap: I forgot to answer your question. I make quilts!

[Nozzelnut]

It's got that tight feeling from my eyes to my nose through my chin. Not throbbing, but I try to stay ahead of it with liquid ibuprofen; just tight is the only way I can describe it; maybe stuffy, or congested sinus headache feeling. A little tingle my chin or lips every now and again.

[SampMitch]

Snap...

I'm from Brooklyn, work in a school in queens(maspeth) but moved to long beach last year. Tracey Rosenberg also works at an office in Massapequa which is where I went to see her. She was the ONLY doctor I could find that was in network and willing to do the surgery! I actually went to her office to meet with someone named Dr. Jurman but he wasn't in the day I went (I specifically requested an appointment with him, got there waited 2+ hours, and dr. Rosenberg walked in and I'm like "you're not dr. Jurman?" And she's like uhm no he's not even in today... But she was like I also do jaw surgery so I can do a consultation with you... So I did and I liked her a lot. She was very honest and upfront and very personable!

[snapdresser]

Nozzlenut - Refried beans, you say? Hmmm.... Sounds kind of intriguing. The hot sauce waters it down enough to get it through between your teeth/elastics? Or you add water too? I know what you mean about the tightness in your face. It's the same feeling for me from around the top of my nose, out to about the middle of my cheeks, and down to my chin. It's the worst in the morning right after I wake up for some reason.

Jaime - Good you hear you're progressing well! I started moving my bottom lip on Day 4 post-op. Wiggling it around a bit, flexing the muscle. My chin doesn't really hurt at all. Still pretty numb, especially on the left side where it's completely numb. Makes shaving seem strange. You wonder if you're being gentle enough. My teeth hurt tho, too. It varies which particular tooth hurts, but it's never excruciating, really. That's neat that you do the quilts

SampMitch - Right, right, Long Beach. Yeah, I don't like the Massapequa office. It's pretty ghetto IMO lol. The Plainview office is much nicer. Not that it matters, really. Same doc regardless, but when I was at the Massapequa office the other day the a/c wasn't working enough and it was hot as hell in there. Having her messing around with my sutures and stuff in the heat was pretty dang un-fun. Anyways, Dr. Schwartz will do great, I'm sure!

[jaime]

Nozzelnut, hopefully that goes away for you soon. My congestion got a whole lot better around day 10.

How's everyone's sleep? I've been very fortunate in that I've gotten long sleeps since day 1. My struggle now is that I am going to bed later and later, waking up later and later. Now I'm sleeping from 1am-9:30am. I would like to shift that back to maybe 12-8:30am.

[Nozzelnut]

I add enough hot sauce to make them more of a paste; water or beef broth would work too. I use the spoon and scrape method; take a spoon full and scrape it off with my teeth while removing it. I can open about an inch so as long as it's not too full I can get a bunch in. Guessing a tongue depressor would work too.

I just needed something other than sweet. Yogurt, peanut butter, and that sort of thing only go so far....

[SampMitch]

Yeah I wasn't really feeling it and the 2+ hour wait the day I went kind of left a bad taste in my mouth even though Dr. Rosenberg was so nice... I thought if I'm going to do this I would rather just pay for the really well known out of network doctor to have it done perfectly and be given the attention this surgery needs (including pre and post surgery appointments)... And not be subjected to 2 hour waits...

[snapdresser]

Jaime - Funny you mention that! I was also getting to bed later and later till I hit like 2 AM, so 2 days ago I started trying to crash earlier. Now I'm in bed at 9:30-10:30 and up early. Too much to do in the mornings!

Nozzelnut - Sounds pretty good, but I can't even really do pastes with this amount of elastics. I can open maybe a cm or so but there's just way too many elastics to even get a tongue depressor in there lol. Maybe a Qtip if I needed to? Lol

SampMitch - Ugh, yeah, unfortunately the waits are pretty unpredictable. Post-op they brought me straight back usually. Pre-op in the afternoon sometimes I had a long wait But the post-op care from Dr. Rosenberg has been pretty incredible. Been in twice a week for the last 2 weeks for various things, no wait except once, and she gave me her phone number so I can text little questions/concerns and whatnot. She responds to the texts within about 20 mins, even in the evening and on weekends. Post-op care wise, I'm not sure any surgeon does better, and few do as much. Pre-op she was receptive to my request for extra appointments. I wanted to make sure I was comfortable with the treatment plan and all. Lots of people see their surgeon once or twice before the big day. I saw Dr. Rosenberg probably a half-dozen times at LEAST. All that being said, a 2-hour wait and the appearance of the Massapequa office are understandable turn-offs. The bigger issue, of course, is that you're getting a riskier procedure and you want someone on it that's comfortable doing it and has lots of experience doing it. Let me know how Schwartz does! I'm sure you'll be more than happy with him

So I've gotten lots of great feedback already! A friend of mine said I look like George Clooney now But the consensus seems to be that I look great, and more importantly I think I look great! I'm excited for all of you guys too as the swelling comes down and you get your first look at your amazing, beautiful results

[jaime]

Snap, are you going to get some extra elastics so you can remove them when you eat? I was told to take mine out when I eat but I rarely do.

Without elastics, I can open my mouth about a finger and a half now. It's funny because I'll wedge it open with my toothbrush and then it just stays open unless I consciously close it. The muscles must be stiff.

I'm really glad you're liking how you look! I'm in the midst of posting a blog entry and video and I talked about that, too. It's unbelievable when I compare photos side by side. I am ecstatic about my new face. I never realized before all of this that I had a weak chin and that my nose looked big because of my jaw structure. Now when I look back, it's so obvious.

This weekend I am going to make a soup from Dinner Through a Straw that has refried beans in it. All this talk of refried beans convinced me.

This talk of NYC is funny, as that's where my husband is right now for his new job. He's in TriBeCa.

[deathorglory]

So someone who had upper and lower jaw surgery told me that when she started craving a burger, she did got a quarter pounder from McDonald's, took off 1 bun, plopped the rest of it into her blender, and thinned it out with beef broth. She said she knows it sounds absolutely disgusting, but it filled some unhappy hamburgerless void in her and tasted exactly like a hamburger. ...I just kept thinking about blended up meat bits getting stuck in sutures, but hey...if you're that desperate...

[jaime]

Haha, I'm not going to lie...I've considered doing that.

One of the dental hygienists where I go told me a story of someone she knew who had jaw surgery who bought a McDonalds cheeseburger just to hold it under her nose and smell. I'm not that desperate (yet), but I do make everyone let me smell their food!

[Nozzelnut]

I'm not to the hamburger slurry yet either; and I've craved one for about 5 days...

[gruntled]

The family are having duck today. The smell has been totally killing me all day. The worst part is that this operation has made my sense of smell about a million times better! I was unconsciously a mouth breather before but I can actually breathe properly now! It's a good thing but it's making this liquid diet absolute torture!


I'm very happy with my rate of healing. I haven't taken painkillers since Tuesday - 6 days post surgery. I haven't had any pain since and the feeling seems to be coming back well - although I think I was overambitious when I said all my feeling has come back I have small numb spots on my cheeks, my palate is sort of 50% numb and my gums at the top front are about 80% numb right now.

Had a gentle poke around yesterday for the first time, noticed that I can very much feel a large firm lump where my stitches under my top lip are - just under my nose. Not really sure what it is but not really bothered by it. They also took out my weird tooth - I had a small extra tooth similar in shape to a canine fused to the side of one of my top back teeth. It's really weird feeling it gone!

I just can't wait for my bruising to dissipate so I stop looking so battered and can go out in public! I also can't wait for my face to stop being so puffy...and I am desperate for pizza

[gruntled]

I feel like I'm having every classic concern there is to have


I feel as though my underbite has turned into an overbite!! Now when I bite together, my top teeth go over my bottom teeth as well as my bottom brace brackets. I feel as though my top teeth should hit the top of my brackets but not go over them! It wasn't like this when the operation was first completed, this has only happened in the last three or four days...but it's getting worse


Is this something I should be worried about? I know this is probably fixable using braces but I've had mine on for 5 years and was hoping I could have them off sooner than the potential 1 more year

[jaime]

Gruntled, it's okay. They say to give your swelling and your bite a full year before you're actually seeing the final, final result. And as my ortho told me, things are still very pliable right now. In my time reading blogs and forum posts, soooooooo many people worry about their bite right after surgery (even me), but we're nowhere near the final product yet. Things are bound to shift around as the swelling goes down and muscles adjust. The bite needs to settle first.

It's far too easy to freak out, much harder to just trust the process.