Friday, January 01, 2010

Jaw Surgery



Well after three years of working towards the jaw surgery I had it done.

This started with a sinus infection that lasted for 6 months. I did have one at the start but it turns out that I was having TMJ pains, I was unhinging my jaw to eat, talk, yawn and all sorts of other things. This caused my joint to no longer be round.

I then had to wear a dental splint, 24 hours a day taken out only to brush my teeth, for a year to figure out how bad my bite was. At the end of that it was found out that my lower jaw was too small and that I have been grinding and clenching my teeth all the time, I wore a hole into the splint.

Braces were the next stage of treatment and then jaw surgery. A year and a half into the brace treatment it was also found that the upper jaw did not fit the bottoms, there was a see saw effect the right side would touch and the left side would not and vice versa. So also needed the upper jaw broken to fit the bottom. I needed a La Fort 1 and a sagittal split osteotomy.

I had the Surgery on the 29th of Dec. It was an overnight stay at the hospital, having people wake you up every 2 hour for vitals, having the alarms on the IV pump go off every hour or so and then having the ice melt every hour I did not get much sleep. But at least I had pain meds.

This hurt more than I thought it would and drinking is very hard. My jaw is banded shut. I am drinking by taking sips from a spoon, I feel like a little kid again having my mom feed me meds and trying to use a sippy cup to drink. I can not use a straw. That and I can not feel my lips so drooling is a large problem.