Five weeks post-op today. Technically this means only one more week until I'm out of the woods with this recovery! I say "technically" because I don't have my 6 week post-op appointment with Dr. Steinbacher until I am 8 weeks post-op so I am going to stick with the mush diet until I get the thumbs up from the surgeon that everything has healed enough for me to start eating normally again.
I ate Panera Mac and Cheese today though which is one of my absolute favorite foods so I'm pretty happy with the mush diet... for today anyway. My teeth and gums aren't as achey anymore though that could be because I have been taking the extra strength Tylenol regularly. The sutures still feel tight when I smile and when I talk sometimes but making sure that I drink A LOT of juice and water during the day has really helped with that.
My lips and one small area of my chin are the only things that are still numb and I am slowly regaining feeling. I am hoping by the end of three months I will have all feeling back in my lips, though they did warn me that a common result of surgery is that I may have some parts of my lips that never regain feeling or take years to fully regain it. I'm hoping I'm not one of those people but my luck hasn't been so good so far with this recovery.
A lot of people have asked how much weight I've lost since being on the liquid diet and the truth is not that much. I've lost about 15 lbs which from what I've read seems to be the norm for women who have jaw surgery. I'm hoping to keep up with the weight loss even after I return to a normal diet.
My jaw is starting to feel more normal now, like opening isn't as strange and foreign as it was a couple weeks ago. Its starting to feel more like my jaw rather than a prosthetic jaw that they just screwed on. Also, the twitching has stopped which is nice because that was always a bit unnerving.
The swelling in my cheeks is still the same. Its hard to smile because my cheeks don't have as much stretch to them yet and my lips get stuck on my braces so my smile looks kind of crooked but its getting there.
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