Meeting with surgeon-good news and bad

Had my first proper meeting with the surgeon who preformed my op yday.

Good news:
The infection is actually in my cheek and not my op site, app ive bitten a chunk of as its numb, and its got infected and icky.
Im managing to keep my teeth and mouth pretty clean, considering im still to swallon to brush anything like properly.
In myself im doing well.

Bad news:
My jaw muscles are pulling my bite back out of line, i now have a small openbite and overjet back again, that were not there immediately after surgery
Due to the above i am now in tight bands that mean i cant open my mouth at all, whilst wearing them.
Im now in more pain then i was before attending the appointment.

I saw my xray and the difference from before is amazing (in a good way) tho it was abit freaky to see my jaw with big gaps in the bone. (13mm advancement) it was also surprising to me how big the plates were.

My ortho app was also yday and that went fine, she just went over with me how to change the bands, how to clean my teeth and the operation sites etc. I have to go back next thursday to check on my progress.

Felt abit down when i got home, and had a few tears, but soon picked myself up and figured i had to get on with it, as its better to be banded shut for a few weeks then face a complete relapse. Guess it just feels like ive taken a step backwards in my recovery and thats whats getting me down. Also tired all the time still, and thats not helping as i want to be doing abit more now, and just dont have the energy yet.

Feel slightly happier today, but the bands are still hurting and feel abit like they are pulling my teeth out im hoping tho its like anything on this journey and itll just take a few days to get used to it, and then itll be fine.

9 days post op

Cant believe its been a week since i came home from hospital. In myself im feeling abit better, im able to do most things, ive been out to the shop a couple of times, tho im still very very tired. Im getting my sense of humour back to, tho i cant smile or laugh really as it causes me quite alot of pain.

Had a major scare yesterday, when i bent over and suddenly had all this liquid in my mouth, when i spat it into a hanky it was horrible smelling yellowly ooze, coming i think from one of the wisdom teeth extraction sites its continued to ooze on and off a little but nearly stopped now.

I called the hospital, but as i have an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow morning (hes not there today) and no raised temperature, its been decided unless it gets any worse ill keep to that appointment.

Pain wise, its still pretty bad, and i keep getting itches and nerves jumping at night which is anoying but all obviously good signs at the same time. The swelling is still about the same as it was, and the bruising is still getting worse (and more multi coloured!! ) i will take some more pics later and update.

6 days post op

Not such a good day today, am getting abit fed up. Think its a combination of finding it quite hard to sleep, as i have a mountain of pillows to contend with, and keep waking myself up trying to roll onto my side and generally being in pain and discomfort.

Pain wise-i get:

* the occasional nervey shooting pain, in my jaw, which is pretty bad but short lasting.

* a dull aching pain in my jaw

* a weird pins and needles type pain in my lips and mouth

* strange itching sensations that i cant get rid of, as i cant feel myself scratch them!!

* My neck is one of the worst parts as this is where most of the swelling and bruising is, i have a permantly stiff neck that hurts to move my head

Eating im doing pretty well:

* ready break (like porridge)

* weetabix squashed into lots of milk

* yoghurts

* mousses

* lots of soups

* mashed potato, with gravy and cheese (not at the same time!!)

* i even managed a shepherds pie, with lots of extra gravy, as i could just swallow it, if mashed down enough :)

So im pretty pleased with my progress on that front so far.

Feels in a way that its been longer ago, then 6 days, tho i feel like my progress has been very slow, tho i guess this hasnt been helped by the unexpected happenings in the hospital.

Looking good!! The swelling is actually getting worse, along with the bruising. I look abit like hamster with a severly bad double chin at the moment Lol. The worst of the bruising is under my chin, and as it hurts so much to move my head up, im unable to get a good photo of it yet.

This pic shows how i seem to have developed a pretty impressive double chin in less than a week. Under the hanging down bit is a pretty impressive bruise, looking just like ive tried to hang myself!!-marvellous!!

CONT from 11th feb 2008

Obviously i didnt know anything was goin on after this point for a few hours. . . .


The next thing i remember was waking up in a very light room and wondering why i was all on my own, i wasnt scared just confused, then i heard someone comment that i was awake and i realised i must be in recovery. I must have slipped back out of conciousness for a time, then i woke up to a very strange feeling in my mouth. I was very confused and disorientated but soon realised that my mouth was full of blood. I didnt freak out but knew that as no one else had noticed i needed to get it out myself, i was still too groggy to sit up, and just sort of spat it out, this kept happening and i still wasnt scared just getting a bit bored of spitting out the blood! Someone came running over at this point and sat me up slightly, i realised at this point how much id been bleeding as the whole of the night gown was soaked someone from the maxillo department came and packed gauze into my mouth, as one of the wisdom teeth id had removed was hemorraging badly. (this is quite uncommon but can happen to anyone, even from a routine extraction, and was just bad luck)


Then i laid there for a hour or so until the bleeding had stopped and i was able to go to the high dependancy ward. I didnt realise it at the time, but by now my family were panicing as they had been told the surgey would take 3 hours ish, and by the time i got back to them id been gone nearly 6 hours.

I was transferred to high dependancy for one to one nursing care, with a very nice little morphine pump to administer my own drugs my family and boyfriend came into see me, and i settled down for the night.


Unfortanetly my body had other ideas, and as the night progressed i became wheezy and my asthma got bad, so i had to be put on a nebuliser. Then the medication id been given caused my blood pressure to drop too. The night wasnt a good one, as i had 2 drips, a blood pressure cuff, my morphine pump, oxygen tubes up my nose etc etc. and as the night wore on i kept needing to go the loo, as the drips did there thing!


The next morning i was woken for my medication, and sat up in bed, helped to wash and some breakfast of porridge was laid in front of me, along with a great cup of tea. Obviously i couldnt and didnt try to chew, but i ate as much as possible.


It was decided i was well enough to be transferred to a normal ward at this point, so off i went via xray to have pics taken of my jaw. I felt really dizzy at this point and the swelling was already pretty bad, and i even had alot of bruising less than 24 hours after the surgery.


As my blood pressure had dropped from the painkillers i spent day 2 only being able to take paracetamol, which quite frankly were no use at all. That evening when the doctor came round, he said he was going to risk giving me some codeine again, as in his opinion it was cruel to expect me to only have paracetamol.


That night was aweful, and i vowed to be home the next day. There was also more good and bad news to come. The good news was that the operation itself had gone well, the surgeon was 100% confident there had been no permanent nerve damage, and the xrays were looking very good. The bad news was that i was holding my jaw very very badly, and although my teeth met fine, i was increasing my chances of a re lapse by continuely holding it at a very funny angle. Bands were placed on, and at one point it looked like i would be completely banded shut, but im still waiting to find out what will happen next

The docs werent too happy to send me home as id had so many issues along the way, but i pleaded with them and eventually they relented and discharged me wednesday evening. It was actually quite scary to be at home, especially as they had wanted to keep me in another night. But i was glad to see my own bed, even if it was hard to see under all the pillows i needed to sleep!!


Here are before photos taken on the night before surgery (10th feb 2008)







This is obviously me from the front view!!











This is my profile on the 10th feb 08, its not too bad although you can see my chin is abit far back. Tho im not having any of this done for cosmetic reasons, a better profile is a bonus.






















Right: this is my teeth in profile, you can see my overjet quite clearly, at this moment it stands at 13mm.











These are photos taken on the 15th February 2008 (4 days after surgery)


















Looking good! This is taken on the morning of the 4th day after op. The swelling was much worse on days 2 and 3.













Right: this shows the swelling on the left side and also the bruise which gets bigger with every passing minute.

Pre Op appointment

Had my pre op for jaw surgery on Thursday the 23rd and it didnt all go exactly to plan....

firstly my pulse was very high, so they sent me for an ECG to check heart out, am waiting to hear back on the results of this, so fingers crossed im just one of those people with a higher than average pulse rate.

Then after all the normal health checks and a million questions, the nurse started to fill in the consent form for surgery and i discovered in my notes it says that i could still need both the upper and lower jaw doing, this shocked me abit as, as far as i was concerned it was now definately bottom jaw only : ( yet here i was signing that i agreed to have them both done.

Get to see my surgeon this thursday so hopefully he can clear things up for me, but for now im a little upset and very confused as to whats going on. And it looks like ill be going into surgery not knowing if its one jaw or both.