5 posts tagged “surgery”

My cheeks and neck have a healthy yellow glow!  The most gruesome part of the recovery is behind me; I can hear again, almost talk clearly, and at long last brush my teeth.  There is some sort of rubber retainer over my braces that is getting in the way of pretty much everything and makessshhh mee talk like thissshh.  My face is still just a little bit puffy but at this point I'm not sure how much of it is due to the new appliance and modified bone structure.  Very little I hope because I remind myself of Peter Pettigrew.  I think the bones are starting to settle as well.  A few days ago yawning generating a comforting grinding noise and a feeling of extreme pressure, but this too seems to have stopped.  The only thing bothering me now is my nose/sinuses which still feel raw.  The nose bleeds have stopped however, which is pleasant.

It's still only been a week so I'm not trying to draw any conclusions, but everything looks good to me.

For the uninitiated: The worst part about recovering from oral surgery is the moratorium on brushing ones teeth.  Oh god is it disgusting in there.  I'm wondering if I can get around this by maybe swallowing an alka seltzer tablet.  The swelling has gone down a bit and still no pain, but also no feeling in my gums.  When I yawned this morning fluid trapped near my ear ( seriously how does this happen? ) moved I can hear a lot better.  Last night I had the craziest dreams...

Jaw surgery wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  The first few hours of recovery sucked due to all the tubes that were stuck in me, but by the night it was smooth sailing.  Onto months of unbearable recovery!

Had my consultation with the oral surgeon today.  Got the usual debrief about the risk of life and limb as a result of getting surgery.  There's 1/1000 chance that any number of wonderful things could happen that would make the rest of my life fairly miserable.  I've had fairly good luck thus far so once he gets back to me about the specifics I'll say agree to the treatment.

The incision will start at the front of my upper jaw and continue through to the back. A wedge shaped piece of bone will be removed from each side.  Apparently some sort of anchors are inserted into the top jaw and attached to my braces to hold the lower part of my upper jaw in place.  The procedure requires general anesthesia.

As far as costs goes its $300 -just- to get the information set in to my insurance company. Then $1000 each for the special staples they'll put in my jaw to keep it together.  I'll need at least 2 and they've warned me that they are generally not covered by insurance.  Following surgery there's a 90 day period of free check-ups after which I may need to pay for X-rays and additional visits.  The rest of the surgery and one night hospital stay is generally covered by insurance. Thankfully I'm getting 10/hrs paid overtime until December so it won't hurt the wallet to bad.

The recovery is roughly a two week period on drugs during which I'm limited to liquids.  If my lower jaw needs to be adjusted, which it probably won't, I'll be limited to clear fluids only that doesn't bother me because my jaw would be wired shut anyway.  After 3 weeks I'll be allowed to eat soft solids.  In 6 months to a year my face will have fully recovered, assuming there are no complications requiring additional surgery.

A rough measurement of the gap in my bite suggests that my face will be shortened by about 1/2 centimeter.