Underbite Jaw Surgery

Background

So I thought I would start this blog to help other people understand what the jaw surgery experience is really about. I start writing this on my third day out of surgery. I'm 24 years old and have put off fixing my teeth for way too long. I decided to start fixing them once I got out of college. Here is what I looked like before surgery, with about a year of Invisalign braces.

Me and my beautiful girlfriend at a wedding

Once my bottom teeth were fixed enough, I was told by my orthodontist to work on scheduling my corrective jaw surgery. The procedure I had to have done was a LeFort 1 Osteotomy to correct my underbite.  In simple terms they would be sawing off my top jaw and moving it forward a few millimeters so that my teeth would line up correctly. After the jaws were lined up, the surgeon would put in a few brackets to hold things in place.

Day of Surgery

So now starts the fun. I had my surgery at noon on Tuesday December 18th 2012. I arrived at the hospital two hours prior to surgery. After some preliminary paperwork, I was sitting in my gown and awaiting an IV that would prep me for my jaw surgery. Before I knew it, I was awake.

After surgery, I had some issues with my nose bleeding too much and also some issues with pain. My body, for whatever reason, was not very receptive to the pain medication that the hospital was giving me, so I was put on a morphine pump to help alleviate some of the pain.

My little brother was nice enough to stay in the hospital with me throughout the night while they monitored my progress. Neither of us slept too much because the nurses kept coming in to check on me. There was also constant beeping from the numerous machines they had in my room.

First Day Home

After some paperwork and a few X-rays, I was able to come home! I wanted to get out of the hospital as fast as I could so that I could go home and rest in bed. The swelling was still very significant, which was expected. The one thing I didn't expect to be so bad was the pain. Much like in the hospital, my body didn't seem to respond to the painkillers. My girlfriend had to go back to the hospital to get an upgraded pain killer to help me manage my pain.

My standard recovery outfit

Having plenty of siblings to help out was definitely a plus. They have all been very helpful in getting me the things I need regardless of what it was. My older sister brought over her dog to help cheer me up, which was nice. The swelling and pain are still pretty bad, but I know that these first few days are the roughest of the entire journey. I have been trying to ice my face as much as possible to keep the swelling down.

Day Three

This morning I woke up feeling a lot better than I did yesterday. I was finally able to sleep for more than two hours and the extra rest really helped out. It isn't a great visual improvement, but things are starting to get better. 

I spent the majority of my day i bed and watched Netflix and played Xbox. My girlfriend came to spend the afternoon with me and kept me company while my family finished their Christmas shopping.

Diet

Since being home, I have really tried to focus on getting as many nutrients into my body as possible. Using the syringes to eat can be quite annoying sometimes, but I'm trying to continue to eat and eat so that my body has the ammo it needs to recover as quickly as possible. I have been pigging out on the following things so far:

• Protein Shakes 
• Syntha 6 makes the best tasting protein shakes I have ever tasted. I use them when I am training for sports. I bought a huge tub of the vanilla ice cream flavor and blend it with some ice and milk. It tastes so good that I have two huge shakes a day
• Yogurt
• Since yogurt is easy to suck up through the syringe, I have been trying to eat a few a day to build up some calcium in my body
• Blended Spaghettios!
• I saw this idea on another jaw surgery blog, and thought it sounded great. I blended two cans of spaghettio's and heated it up in the microwave. Even though it didn't look too appetizing, it tasted great. It actually tastes just like tomato soup with a few ritz crackers crushed up and mixed in.