| sagittal split mandibular osteotomy |
[Jan. 5th, 2009|12:41 am] |
I found a lot of "I had to have this done and couldn't find anything online so I'm gonna make my own" type of blogs about my surgery, so I thought I'd jump on the band wagon and make one of my own.
This has been an incredibly long process that is hopefully coming to an end quickly. I remember the first time going to a new dentist and they freaked out over a bite that I thought was just an "overbite" that didn't need fixing. Turns out I had an open bite and my jaw was off line causing all the pressure to be placed on two teeth. Because the pressure wasn't distributed evenly, there was a high chance of multiple complications in the near future (root canals, etc). They told me about this probably around the time I was 18 I would say, before I got my wisdom teeth out. My dad and I went and met a couple orthodontists and Dr Loetscher in Norcross who wound up being my surgeon. We also chose Dr Jordan in Alpharetta to be my orthodontist. I had the braces put on in January and had an expander placed in March. Mid-March, I had the rapid expansion surgery done (by Dr Loetscher) which gave me a beautiful gap in my front teeth. Months passed, that healed, and I just had the second surgery done in December. This was the sagittal split mandibular osteotomy, and they did a lot of work here. They included bringing my chin forward as a separate part of the surgery to give more definition to my face. They just cut the tip of my chin off and pulled it forward. It's more effective than a chin implant because it pulls the muscles along with it. Also, my upper jaw was angled down so they wound up basically removing my upper jaw and chiseling off a layer to make it sit flat. Then they unhinged my lower jaw making cuts in the sides so they could slide my jaw forward. My mom said it was 3 centimeters they moved it, but I honestly don't know the right amount. But they did slide it forward. All bone cuts were set with titanium pins that look like little dumbbells. I have at least 10 in my face I think, but possibly close to 16. That's another fact I'm not so sure about.
Well the surgery took 2 and a half hours and went really well. He said there were no complications and he didn't have to go back to reset the jaw or anything - it all lined up perfectly the first time. My jaw is not wired shut. It was only wired shut during surgery but they removed the wires before they woke me up again. I went back a week later and everything has been healing properly.
The first two days after surgery were good for swelling. I didn't swell too badly. My cheeks were a bit chubbier but there wasn't a drastic change. They had warned us though that the third day is normally the worst, which proved to be true. By then, I had taken all the steroids prescribed and the other medications had been wearing off, and my face blew up like a balloon. I swelled from under my chin to right under my eyes and my lips especially got really big. The pain was bad too. The first day, it was nearly impossible to swallow. It was difficult at first because my tongue and roof of my mouth were both numb so I couldn't feel when I needed to swallow. My tongue gots its feeling back rather quickly, but it started to sting and ache when I tried to swallow. That pain only lasted about a day. All the other pain was from aching and discomfort, which is normal. The numbness also gives a strange sensation which I really don't find comfortable, so that added on extra frustration. But the swelling only stayed for about 2 days and went down considerably in a single day. I also had to wake up every 3 hours for the first week to take medicine and sleeping was a hassle. Once I stopped waking up every 3 hours, it was hit or miss if I would sleep through the night. Many times I woke up in pain or discomfort, but I found that taking medicine right before bed helped too. I also didn't bruise too badly. They messed up on 2 IVs so I have a pretty nasty bruise on my left hand that's about 2.5/3 inches long, but I didn't bruise much on my face at all. There were some yellowish colored bruises under my chin but they mostly went away with the swelling. But I have heard of other people turning purple and black from bruising so I can't say that you'll get off easy with this surgery.
Tuesday will mark 2 weeks after surgery. My chin is still completely numb and tingles whenever I touch it or talk and the roof of my mouth is numb as well as the area around my nose and upper lip and my gums. I have feeling in the rest of my face though. The pain has almost completely gone away, although I can definitely tell when I've talked too much or worked my mouth a little more than I should have. It gets sore kind of like after a workout. That was another thing - eating the first couple days took so much more energy than I imagined. I slept most of the time. And if you have ever sucked in cold air through your bottom teeth and felt that kind of pain, that's what I feel pretty much all the time now. I also get tingling sensations in my cheeks and lips, but they said that would be the numbing medication wearing off.
The biggest problem is that I'm on a 6 week soft food diet. I can't chew anything harder than macaroni and cheese. I've been trying to find some type of diet list that will give me ideas for meals. The same thing gets really old really fast. So here is a list of what I have been eating. If you have any suggestions, I'd love them and I hope this could possibly help someone else.
*As if a soft food diet wasn't hard enough, I'm also lactose intolerant and don't like seafood. But the surgeon did say that some fish was good to eat because it is softer, as well as scrambled eggs
-macaroni and cheese
-mashed potatoes/sweet potatoes (or baked potato or fries, as long as they are soft)
-pureed carrots (guess you could puree anything)
-creamed corn
-hashbrowns
-ice cream/milkshakes
-smoothies
-fruit (bananas, berries, peaches, mandarin oranges)
-soups (but ask your surgeon. they told me not the first couple of days because of sodium)
-ambrosia (marshmallows, mandarin oranges, coconut)
-ravioli (chef boyardee or the white cheese kind you can boil) or any pasta
-peanut butter and jelly is actually soft without the crust and cut into bite size pieces
-oatmeal
-chili
-spaghettios
-fried bananas
-cherries, but only buy canned cherries or seedless ones
-pudding or yogurts
-vegetable pot pie
-some breads are ok, like sandwich bread
I'll try to post some pictures of the progress. I still have a little way to go with the swelling and I can't chew until February, but I'm still truckin. And last I heard, I'll have braces 4-6 months after surgery, but I have a dentist appointment on tuesday so he'll probably be able to give me a more accurate time frame. So hopefully by this summer I'll be completely through with this whole process. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 4th, 2008|12:32 am] |
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I'm better. I think I was just having an overly dramatic moment after a friend cancelled weeklong plans. phew... I apologize. |
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| I love music |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|05:05 pm] |
Losing hope is easy
When your only friend is gone
And every time you look around
Well, it all, it all just seems to change
But hanging on is easy
When you've got a friend to call
When nothings making sense at all
You're not the only one who's afraid of change |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|05:07 pm] |
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what is it about me that makes it so damn easy for people who I considered my closest friends to drop me like that... over a guy |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|06:28 pm] |
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I hate relationships. And I hate how relationships tear people apart. And I hate how people willingly throw themselves into these relationships that will tear them apart from the people who they know are better for them. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 9th, 2008|12:44 pm] |
what a night last night. holy cow.
so victoria was in statesboro for the weekend visiting a friend, and she wanted to stop my milledgeville on the way home. so I gave her directions and she got here fine and left around 8:30. I told her which way to go home, but somehow she took a wrong turn and went about an hour in the wrong direction. when I finally got a hold of her, she was in wheeler county and then dublin and then finally got herself into macon about 30 minutes from gcsu. I called again and it turns out that her car started overheating and broke down in macon, so I went to go get her. I called again and she told me that she had to call the police because this car pulled up next to her and one of the guys inside was apparently drunk and playing with a revolver. she said he kept spinning the part where you're supposed to load bullets (I don't know too much about guns.. can you tell?). so she called the cops but the guys left. either way, she gets into the cop car and they called a tow truck and I showed up at the gas station. oh, and about halfway there I realized that I left my wallet in my room at gcsu so I didn't have my license or any money in case we needed it. and my emergency brake light was on the entire time I drove, except the brake wasn't on as far as I could tell. and it didn't really smell or anything either... so I picked her up and my dad talked to the tow guy and figured almost everything out and we got back to gcsu around 1. so victoria left to go home at 8:30 and was driving until 1 only to wind up staying in my place. now her car is at some auto shop in macon and she's back in atlanta, 3 hours away from her broken down car.
but praise Jesus somehow we found her and got her back safe. (and that my car didn't break down either) |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 7th, 2008|09:55 pm] |
I got surgery yesterday.
It was only the first one which wasn't all that bad. The bigger one is yet to come, but in a few months. They did wind up cutting a lot more bone than I thought they would. I'll spare the details seeing as they're kind of gross.
It was pretty cool though. My whole face was numb, so I couldn't feel anything. I wound up taking a bunch of pictures on my way home so if you have my facebook, you should definitely check those out. They'll give you a pretty good laugh, so please, laugh. I sure did.
I made it back to school tonight. The recovery was amazing. I slept a lot and even though I'm still a bit swollen, I was able to make it the 2 hours back to school alone. And I have a study abroad meeting tomorrow, but I guess I'm feeling good enough to go. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 1st, 2008|08:48 pm] |
this has been such an amazing week
it started off really rough. last thursday I went home to get my expander put in as part of this whole surgery procedure thing. it wasn't as bad as I though, but I haven't been able to speak or swallow correctly since. Plus sooner or later I'm gonna get a nice gap in my front teeth which I'm not really looking forward too. Well Friday we left my house to go to Alabama (4 hour drive) where I got to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins (with a new baby!) and my grandma too. It was a really good weekend, but I felt really bad because I kept having to work on homework. I didn't really get to visit as much as I liked, but I didn't get any homework done either, so it was really an unproductive weekend but nice nonetheless.
So anyways it gets to be Sunday and I have 4 papers due the next day plus a huge midterm, another midterm on Tuesday, and a paper due on Wednesday. The paper due wednesday was the only one I got finished over the weekend. After the 4 hour drive home from Alabama, I drove another 2 hours back to Milledgeville and locked myself in my room, staying up until 3 to finish only 3 papers and study a little bit for the midterm. After my first classes got out at 12:15, I had to write that fourth paper for my philosophy class at 2 (which turned out horribly) and go back to my room to study for my midterm on Tuesday - which I also stayed up late doing. And after that midterm, I had a reinterview for next years RA position
so after all that, I finally got to relax. Wednesday came and I found out that I made a 95 collectively on the 3 essays I stayed up to write, and a 92 on the midterm. Thursday came and I found out I got a 92 on my history midterm. After that, I went to my advisor's office to ask about next week's registration, and he told me that I won't have to register because I made it into the cohort (yay!) and they will make my schedule for me meaning I won't have to get up at 5. And I get back to my dorm and my hall director told me that I am getting rehired for next year as an RA.
And last night was the Sister Hazel concert for homecoming week and the band that opened, Blackberry Smoke, was the band that opened for ZZ Top when my dad and I went back in the fall. Small world...
And today was the homecoming parade and we had an amazing float/walk.
All in all, it's been an amazing week. I'm so blessed. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 26th, 2008|09:31 pm] |
I think I passed out in the shower today.. there really is no explanation for it, except maybe that I didn't get much sleep last night at all. I started to get really hot and extremely dizzy and I thought that I was going to throw up, and then I kind of wake up and I was squatting/sitting in the shower. It was a little odd... but I've felt fine the rest of the day
I had an RA conference all day today. I got up at 4am so we could leave at 5 and we didn't get back until about 6pm. It was alright though... a little odd. we had to drive to kennesaw and it was a lot of housing staffs from different schools getting together. some people from different schools put on their own programs on how to better us as RA's, or something like that. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 16th, 2008|04:52 pm] |
FACEBOOK IS DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How in the world am I supposed to waste my time and not do my homework?!
on a lighter note... it's snowing! |
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