Orthognathic Surgery: The After, Day 367 (I know!)

Urgh. I promised to keep up with my updates on my surgery. I apologize to myself and to anyone who actually reads this, but it can get a little difficult to blog when you’ve gone back to school with your jaw banded shut. That is correct: I went back to college, which is two and a half hours away from where I live (and in a completely different state), with my jaw rubber banded rather firmly shut. Even now I look back and cannot really understand how I survived Fall semester.

Around Day 20 or so, my surgeon exchanged my super heavy duty rubber bands for lighter ones. Before I couldn’t even try to inch my teeth apart, but with the new bands I could if I concentrated.  My parents were rather disinclined to take pictures during the healing process, but I took one of myself around Day 25.

 

Orthognathic Surgery, the After: Day 13 and 2 Recipes

It’s Day 13! This past Monday I got my rubber bands put on and my jaw is now tightly shut and in its proper position. We’re not talking wimpy rubber bands, though. I couldn’t open my mouth if I tried. The surgeon says I can probably exchange for less taut bands this coming Monday if I continue to progress nicely. I am still swollen, but now only in my chin, cheeks and lower lip. The transformation is amazing, I can’t recognize myself in the mirror! At this rate, my mother thinks I’m going to need new glasses frames, because my current ones don’t go with my face at all. Which I find hilarious; I distinctly remember picking these particular frames out because they balanced out the angles of my narrow chin.

While there is little physical pain at this stage (if you don’t count the constant nerve tingling in my numb areas), there is still a significant amount of emotional pain. I’m not talking depression, I’m talking food pain. As in, I spend all of my time watching the Food Network and wondering if Tyler’s Ultimate Pork Chops would still be Ultimate if I pureed them in a blender. You see, now that my jaw is banded shut it’s actually easier to eat. That may sound ridiculous; how do you eat if you can’t pry your own teeth apart? But now it’s harder to gag and choke on things. I’m still using my syringe, and it took a while to figure out how to get liquid past my teeth and to my throat, but once you get the hang of it (stick the attachment on the syringe in the corner of your mouth, push, suck) it’s pretty okay. I just have to stay away from liquids with noticeable particles. Seeing as I’m still not allowed to brush yet, that would be extremely counterproductive and rather unhygienic.

 

Orthognathic Surgery: the After, Day 6

It’s been six days since the surgery, and I’m recovering well. My face is still swollen, but it has decreased considerably – I no longer look like I have a cantaloupe for a head. I look more like a chipmunk. The immense amount of pressure spreading from my cheeks, chin to lower ears that has plagued me for the past few days has also gone down. Now it’s more like an insistent pulsing. The biggest improvement, though, is finally being able to clean out my nose! They didn’t allow me to touch my nose so soon after the surgery and I’m still not allowed to sneeze/blow my nose, but I can finally use a Q-tip and, well, you know. Here’s to breathing!

 

Orthognathic Surgery: the Before

The day before I went in for the surgery, I actually ate very little. I was too nervous to eat much of anything, and mom finally had to shove food down my throat. I think I had chicken and beans or something like that. I don’t really want to post pre-op pictures, but it doesn’t make much sense if I don’t:

Pre-op, my smile from the front

Pre-op, side angle view of my jaw

I have had braces since the seventh grade, if I remember correctly, and their purpose was to correct a stubborn overbite that only seemed to get bigger and bigger as the years went by, despite extensive therapy. I had a deficient lower jaw, causing a very pronounced tapering of the bottom of my face. From the side, my jaw protruded downwards rather than forwards in a smooth line. Combined with the lip protusion caused by the braces, my profile was not entirely attractive.