My Jaw Surgery Adventure

Well, here goes...

I don't quite have a procedure to the extent of SingleCabGuy, but I am marginally nervous and new to this whole surgery world either way.

I had braces when I was in my early teens. Got everything all straightened out and thought everything was hunky-dory. About the time my braces came off, my orthodontist at the time realized that my bottom jaw continued to grow when my upper had stopped. He told us that something would likely have to be done at some point in time to get my bite figured out, whether that be just braces again to get everything pulled back together or something a little more serious.

Fast forward to a year ago: In my Junior year of college, looking forward to graduate and on the lookout for potential job prospects. The last thing that I wanted to do was go and get braces. At the time I was convinced that all of this braces/possible surgery stuff would be better suited to wait until I was out of college. After thinking on it for a long time I came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a "good time" to have braces. I came to terms with getting braces and trying to get them off before I got out of college so that maybe I would have that chapter of my life behind me by the time I got into adulthood and my career.

Got my braces on Dec 15, 2011 (the day after my birthday). Worked with the orthodontist for a while and then around March 2012 I started to look for surgeons to give me a consult about possible surgery. The response was unanimous... I need to have surgery to correct my bite the way that it needs to be. There's a long story about the consults, but long story short I ended up choosing a surgeon that is in my town.

Everything was going well and I had surgery scheduled for July 19,2012. On the 14th I saw my surgeon for my final consult so that he could take impressions and make my stint for the surgery. The following morning I get a call from him telling me that my teeth are not where he expected them to be and that he cannot perform the surgery. (As a little aside, I have been putting things off and changing plans to accommodate this surgery. My new job that I will be starting soon has also been put off because I am having surgery.) I was absolutely livid at this point. I really hated my orthodontist in the first place so I promptly fired him and found an orthodontist here in town that had worked with my surgeon many times before with great results.

Fast forward to today where I have been working with my surgeon and my orthodontist to get myself ready for surgery. My last visit with the ortho was where they used pieces of wire to tie the wire to each one of my brackets and the surgical hooks were also installed at that time. My surgery is scheduled for March 14. I will do my best to update this thread with some pics as well as news/thoughts along the way.

 

Update on 3/11/13:

Saw the surgeon for my final consult. He took some impressions, a cat scan, and some other stuff to give him an idea of where to move me. I finally got some pics of my current status so that you guys can see where I am. I have a little bit of a sore throat/cold symptoms creeping up at me right now so I am pretty much a walking pharmacy trying to fight it and getting as much sleep as humanly possible. They won't do the surgery if I am running a fever or if I am experiencing chest congestion. Hopefully I can kill it for good with some solid sleep tonight. I meet with the surgeon tomorrow one final time to make sure that the stint fits. And I'll update the OP right now with some pics

 

Kid....if you have to delay this AGAIN I think you should just give up! Holy crap. Or are you doing this on purpose for drama and sympathy?

 

No I'm super serial... its my luck more than anything I think. Didn't sleep super well last night but I don't feel any worse or better this morning really. If I can stay at this level I think ill be fine. Going in a couple hours to make sure my stint fits

 

Fine

I gotta shave my face anyway

 

Stint fits... Surgery set for 9am. Here we go!

 

Kinda nice huh?

I wonder if he'll be any uglier when this is all over?

 

Alright, here's an update... Had surgery yesterday morning. Had a bitch of time coming out of anesthesia. They told me that young healthy men for some reason seem to have a problem with it. Surgery was planned to be 1.5 hours, ended up taking approx 3 hours... Doctor said that I have very thick bones. That being said he really roughed me up. Whole face is numb and very swollen. I think it was worse yesterday though. This morning I went in to see the doc for a quick checkup. My jaw muscles are very numb so I am not able to find the right area for my jaw to sit. He wired my splint to my top teeth so that my lower teeth are able to find the area they need to be. Here are some pics, and I hear that my worst days are ahead of me still.

 

they did make you uglier!!!

glad you got through it so far kid...I'm sure it will be an interesting struggle as the "numbness" wears off.