Day 70 (10 Weeks Post-op)

Holy Jaw surgery Batman! It's been 10 weeks. What? How? HRRNNNGGGGG!


So thankfully again, not much to report on or update about.

Swelling: Right jaw is still more swollen than the rest of my face, but only by a little bit. 

Eating: I feel so well prepared for Thanksgiving. I can eat pretty much everything except sandwiches because I can't open wide enough yet. Steak would be really difficult too but I don't eat steak so thats not really an issue for me. I haven't tried salad or pizza yet but I feel pretty confident that I will be able to eat those things too. I had some melon today that was in really big chunks that I needed to cut into smaller/thiner pieces but chewing it was no problem. This week I also got to eat sesame chicken from the Chinese place at the mall. Chewing is finally starting to feel natural again and my jaw doesn't open by itself anymore.

Jaw pain: No pain! Still a little tight every once in a while but thats not painful. Also, you probably assumed by now, but I forgot to say it in the last post: I CAN BRUSH MY TEETH NORMALLY!!!! Even with the bands on! Okay so its a children's toothbrush that looks like a green crayon but its a toothbrush and I am so happy.

when I went to the orthodontist a few weeks ago they gave me slightly larger bands to use when I ran out of the ones from the hospital. I cheated and started using them about a week after getting them because they are just so much more comfortable on my teeth and I can open wider with them on which is so helpful. Below is a picture of the new bands compared to the old ones.









Thats all I've got for you guys this week. I'm starting to get a lot busier and since I don't anticipate having anymore complications to talk about, I'm thinking I am going to only post about once a week until I reach the 90 day (3 months) mark. After that I'll update like every other week or so just to track the milestones with my final post on the year mark! Woohoo!

Day 66

Wow its been a long time since I posted! I even forgot to post on the 9 week mark last Wednesday. Its mid-terms time so I have been crazy busy. But, I do have some awesome updates:


Swelling: Maybe its just wishful thinking but I'm pretty sure the swelling in the right side of my jaw has gone down slightly! I barely notice it anymore. 

Eating: I don't feel too limited anymore, I just ate a cheeseburger without the bun and had no problems. Sandwiches are still slightly out of my reach because I can open all the way just yet and of course the braces thing. But I think this week I am going to see how I do with pizza and maybe salad. I feel slightly more confident about moving my jaw side to side now so I think I'll give it a shot. 

Jaw Pain: I'm pretty much pain free, the muscles feel tight sometimes but thats not really painful. I do notice some aches after being outside when its cold for a while in my right jaw but I also had that before the surgery. But I can almost fit the width of two fingers in my mouth!!

Day 61

Sorry I dropped the ball this week guys, I've been super busy with school work for the last few days. But today I am 2 months post-op yay!! Not much has changed but I will list all the updates I can think of.

Swelling: most of it has gone away but my right jaw still remains puffier than the left side. I must have slept in a funky position last night that put too much pressure on that side or something because it is much more noticeable today than it has been in awhile.

Jaw Pain: My jaw doesn't really hurt so much anymore, what I notice is stiffness when I first take the bands off to open my mouth and after chewing for a while it sometimes feels a little sore but its really not painful. Opening my jaw without the bands is starting to feel more natural the more I chew with the bands off, my jaw doesn't float open by itself anymore but again, when I first take the bands off it takes a minute for the muscles to stretch.

Eating: Not much change in this arena unfortunately, I've been really into the Ritz crackers with cheese but I was also able to successfully eat small pieces of chicken that came in my chicken broccoli Alfredo pasta the other night. Mac and Cheese and really all pastas have been a staple in my diet for the past week because its easy to chew and usually has some kind of protein in it (chicken etc.) Did you know that you can use the hot water from your Kureig to perfectly cook Easy Mac? That was a great discovery. Chewing is getting easier and I can move my jaw side to side a little now though I haven't wanted to really try it. I really need to start trying to chew harder things so that I can keep rebuilding my jaw muscles. I can take my bands off to eat now but I've noticed that I have to kind of stretch my jaw open a little bit before I start eating because it gets stiff from being in one position with the bands for too long. After I eat I can almost always open wider than I could when I started eating.

Numbness: One small part of my bottom lip and my chin is still numb but its getting better little by little.

Teeth Aches/Brushing: Thankfully my teeth haven't really been bothering me lately. The one canine on my front bottom teeth that has a hook on it still gets sore every once in a while, especially if I chew with it but its not that bad. My back teeth aren't as sensitive to pressure and chewing anymore either which is great! I am still using a child-size tooth brush to brush my teeth and I still can't open wide enough to fit it normally between my teeth. But at least I can brush the insides of my teeth now. Seriously never take oral hygiene for granted ever.

Weight Loss: Last time I checked I was 25 lbs down woo! Okay so I know this is a good problem to have but my jeans and most of my sweaters don't fit anymore. I am really happy about this but also annoyed because I'm broke and now I have to buy pants that fit. I have an amazingly generous cousin, Emmy, who offered to use her employee discount to get stuff for me and I may have to take her up on that.

Kidney Stones: No more issues here thank god. I'm still making sure to keep well hydrated and avoiding Turmeric but I gave up on the kidney stone diet they gave me. My diet is already restricted enough.

Site Infection: All gone! I took all of my antibiotics and I haven't had any problems with pain, bruising or swelling since.


I almost forgot! I have been adding to this recovery milestone timeline collage thingy because I think its really helpful to see the difference in comparison to where I started before the surgery. Next picture will be added at the 3 month mark!

P.S. sorry the before picture is always the same, I quite literally never took pictures straight on so this is the only one that I have to use.

Day 56 (8 Weeks Post-op)

Not much to report today thank god, I'm a little relieved that nothing has happened that I need to update everyone about.

I've been taking the bands off to eat and WOW does that make a difference! Chewing is so much easier when you don't have to constantly fish food out of your bands! Gross image I know. I still have some trouble chewing as I can only move my jaw up and down for right now but I can open a little wider than I could last week so that is a promising improvement. Last night I was able to eat crackers with the soft pub cheese spread for dinner and it was glorious. I recommend starting with Ritz crackers because they kind of melt in your mouth and also its really satisfying to eat something that makes a crunching sound. The catch is that I can't really bite into the cracker, I have to break it up into little pieces and then put the cheese spread on it before I put it in my mouth but that is a step in the right direction. I still have to remind myself to chew sometimes since I have gotten really used to not chewing anything but I'm learning.

Opening and closing my mouth has gotten easier too, I feel like I have more control over it now and it doesn't feel like its floating open by itself anymore...as much. Sometimes it feels a little tight when I open but my muscles are still rebuilding themselves so I'm trying to be patient.

I don't notice any significant changes in the swelling, my right jaw is still puffier than the left side but again, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who really notices that. I also don't sound a lisp-y any more when I speak but it still happens every once in a while where an S sounds like a TH. I can almost whistle again too but alas I still can't touch my tongue to my nose. Soon.

Calendar wise I'm officially two months post-op on Monday, which is weird to think about, it feels like the surgery was yesterday and last year at the same time. It finally feels like there is an end in sight with this, though I am reluctant to say that since every time I say something positive or feel like everything is going according to plan something comes up and I don't want to jinx it. Hopefully all my posts from here on out will be as boring as this one!

Day 54

So I saw the orthodontist today and bad news was they couldn't do anything because I can't open my mouth wide enough yet, the good news is my bite is perfect and as long as nothing shifts or changes I should be able to get my braces off in about 6 months (March/April). When Dr. Kozlowski told me that I swear to you I teared up and asked if I could hug him then I did hug him. All the girls in the office who I have worked with all commented that I don't look swollen at all, which is nice to hear even if I still notice some swelling. They told me to keep the bands I have from the surgeon's office on for another 6 weeks but I can take them off to eat and then they can figure out what to do with them after they can fully evaluate my back teeth and stuff. So in 6 weeks, I will have another appointment with the surgeon and the orthodontist. Being able to take the bands off to eat should make learning how to chew much easier. So starting today I begin my training for the Chewing Olympics otherwise known as Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because my Dad makes the best food ever and I plan on being able to fully enjoy everything on the table that day.

In other news, I lost another 5 pounds so that makes my total weight loss from this surgery 25 pounds. I should mention that this is more than what most people who blog about their surgery have lost, but all of them were super skinny to begin with and I had the weight to lose. So I am pretty happy about that. The Chewing Olympics might change this...

One more story for you today: so all the pictures I post here are taken on my phone and then I send them to myself on Facebook so I can upload them here. Its a complicated process but I prefer typing on my computer so its just easier for me to do it that way than trying to do all the blogging from my phone. Well, yesterday I had been messaging a classmate (who I don't talk to on a regular basis) and forgot to exit out of our conversation so I went to send this picture to myself and sent it to him by mistake. Luckily, it wasn't one of the goofy faces from last post but still I was like "HOW DO I EXPLAIN SENDING A RANDOM SELFIE TO A PERSON I DON'T TALK TO?" He was really nice about but I still feel the awkward in the air. Whatever.

Day 50

Today was a really productive day and relatively pain free. I got to meet up with my best friend, Hannah, for brunch at IHOP (Pro-tip: once you're on soft foods you can eat pretty much everything at IHOP) I got eggs and hash  browns, I even got a little more daring and got strawberries and cream crepes. It was doable. The crepes required a little more chewing than I've been used to but I could do it and I only had one or two incidents when the food didn't quite make it all the way into my mouth. I have to remind myself sometimes to chew because I've gotten so used to not chewing. I've noticed that it is easier to chew on the left side, which shouldn't be a surprise considering the issues I've had with the right side. But more excitingly I did a presentation today and it didn't hurt my jaw. I've noticed that my speech is so much clearer and I have most of the feeling back in my lips, there is only one spot all the way in the left corner of my bottom lip that still has almost not feeling at all. My right jaw is the only thing I notice that is still really swollen but the rest of my face seems to be mostly swell-free, I think I even see my cheekbones trying to come out!

WARNING: I have re-discovered facial expressions and I may have taken an obscene number of ridiculous selfies while experimenting with them and posted them here for your entertainment.

Fun fact: I can't whistle anymore, but making the whistle/kissy face is supposed to help your jaw muscles rebuild.

Its important to find some humor in this situation. I found a lot of it.

Okay so, when I was little my Uncle Teddy tried to teach all the nieces and nephews (there is a lot of us) how to touch our tongues to our noses. I have prided myself on being able to do this. So it will be kind of disappointing if I can't do that anymore.

This next one is a sequence of events that took place in a span of like 3 minutes, starting with the top left corner picture and moving left to right from there:

1) Middle school group picture pose.
2) Accidentally getting my lip stuck on my braces.
3) Realizing my my jaw is starting to hurt.
4) Deciding to take one more "good" picture that I could possibly make a Facebook profile picture.
5) Sneezing and somehow still managing to take a picture. HOW?
6) Laughing at the sneeze picture really loud and trying not to open my mouth too wide.
7) Thinking I hear a knock at the door.
8) Realizing it was just someone going into the bathroom.
9) Realizing I have been making faces at my phone for over an hour and I really need to get a life.

Day 49 (7 weeks post op)

So I saw my surgeon yesterday and he said everything looks good and that I probably had a minor infection but the antibiotics should clear that right up. Then he said he would see me in another 6-8 weeks. I find it frustrating that some people seem to get very specific instructions from their surgeons and I'm getting vague statements. I was expecting him to give me instructions on where to go with the elastics that are on my braces like "keep them on for 8 hours a day" or something like what I have read in other blogs but Steinbacher told me that where to go with the bands is now up to my orthodontist. These bands were only needed to keep my jaw in place while it was still healing from the surgery but now that I'm "out of the woods" with that my orthodontist might decide to use bands to move individual teeth. I'm hoping that I am done with these elastics because they really are a pain in the ass but without them opening and closing my mouth feels foreign. Which is another thing the doctor didn't look at, he didn't even want to see how far I could open my mouth without the bands which seems weird to me.

I haven't noticed any changes in the swelling really but I look mostly normal so whatever swelling is left doesn't bother me. One thing the doctor asked was if I noticed and changes to my nose, which I have, it seems to be slightly wider, which is common when you move the top jaw forward but also could be caused by swelling. Either way I really don't care.

Above is a picture of one of my elastics, its in the red circle in case you couldn't see that microscopic thing, thats the size of it compared to a penny and the tweezers I have to use to maneuver the elastics around the hooks on my braces. Side note: the gap in my front teeth seems to have closed up by itself and my bite is perfect all my teeth line up with each other...at least from what I can feel with my tongue...

I'm quite literally re-learning how to chew and its challenging, you don't expect to forget how to chew. Another thing thats hard with the current bands because they don't allow me to open my mouth very much. I could probably take them off to eat now but I feel like I still need help with the chewing motion. I can move my jaw up and down but when you're eating you also move your jaw side to side to manipulate the food, what I find really difficult is getting the food back into my mouth to swallow once I have chewed it. Since the doctor didn't give me any advice on this I've decided not to rush it, I've been on the soft foods that don't need to be chewed but now I am sticking with the same foods but I am trying to chew them. Once I master that I feel like I will be more comfortable manipulating harder foods like chicken.

Opening with bands on: I am able to fit the tip of my pointer finger flat between my teeth.

Opening WITHOUT bands: I can open enough to fit my pointer finger between on its side which is maybe a millimeter or two more.

It looks like a lot but its really really not, a normal person with a fully functioning jaw should be able to open their mouth about 42mm, which is about two-three fingers. P.S. See that dark dot on my jaw line? Still a stitch from the only external entry point for a screw, I finally got the adhesive stuff around it off so its much smaller now.

I am very cautious about opening my mouth without the elastics because my jaw tends to float open by itself without them and it takes a conscious effort to close it. Like if you have every had a cast and when they cut it off your arm floats up a little bit? Though I noticed just now taking that picture that it has gotten a littler easier and it was only a little bit tight and only on the right side.

Day 46

So the doctors put me on a heavy duty antibiotic and so far I haven't gotten too sick from it but I do get dizzy if I get up to fast and if I eat anything less than 4 hours after taking it my stomach gets upset. But the pain has gone away for the most part which tells me that it was probably some type of infection. However, my ear still feels like its full of fluid or something so I think something is going on with that. Also I've been a little more swollen today than I have in the last few weeks so thats still concerning.

On another note, its really hard to lip sync to my music now. I'm not really a person who dances but I get really serious about lip syncing, its truly a performance but since that isn't an option I have to compensate by dancing like a drunk uncle at a wedding: uninhibited and uncoordinated.

Day 44

Okay. I'm a medical clusterfuck.

Remember my theory about the barometric pressure? Partially right but not in my case, it causes pain in some people but my pain was was being caused by something else. Today the pain came back with full force with some sexy swelling and I couldn't open my mouth even enough to fit a normal straw between my teeth. I emailed the surgeons office again and I was insistent that something was wrong.

Nothing about my recovery has been normal. Even in the hospital I told all the doctors that I was having trouble breathing and that was not normal, it was the allergic reaction. Kidney stones are not normal, and I definitely should have been checked out after that because throwing up can cause you to open your mouth wider than its ready to and my doctors should have been on that. Also, every other surgeon's instructions and every blog I have read says that you should be seeing you surgeon for check ups like every 3 weeks and mine hasn't seen me since he rolled me out of the operating room. He didn't even check on me when I was in the hospital he sent his team of annoying minion residents to do it for him.

I spent literally 4 or 5 hours emailing back and forth with my doctors telling them that something is not normal about this pain. Around two o'clock I was taking a warm compress off my face and felt a hard knot under my skin by my joint on the right side and there wasn't one on the other side, so I went to look in the mirror and noticed that my skin and even my ear looked like it was bruised a little bit, so I took a picture (which isn't helpful because the lighting is so bad) and sent it to the surgeons office who finally decided that I was right and told me to make an urgent appointment on Tuesday and in the meantime they started me on heavy duty antibiotics in case it is being caused by a site infection.I decided to come home...again (thank god my parents are in CT which is only two hours away by train) The antibiotics had some scary side effects listed on them like "nausea and diarrhea" and honestly if I'm going to be exploding from both ends I'd rather do it in the comfort of my own bathroom.

This new conflict has been very discouraging as I desperately just want to heal. But it has forced me to come to the conclusion that if this isn't an easily fixable issue, I need to seriously start considering that I might have to take a medical leave from school. I can't do this anymore, I have had maybe a total of 8 days where I have felt normal and healthy, and I can't keep coming home every weekend. But I have had one issue or another every week of this recovery and I am exhausted and I just can't do it anymore.

My lesson for all you potential jaw surgery friends is: you need to advocate for yourself, if you feel like something isn't right, get it checked out. You know your body and your surgeon has probably never had to recover from this surgery so they don't know from personal experience what to expect. So don't be afraid to be a pain in their asses.

Day 43

The intense pain I had yesterday has faded to a noticeable but manageable ache. But there are lots of new pain-ish sensations that I didn't notice before too. My right jaw feels really tight and like there is a lot of pressure on it and while it doesn't exactly hurt to open it feels like I'm stretching it too much and if I talk for longer than like 15 minutes it does start to really hurt. My right jaw is a little more swollen than it was yesterday but not enough to really concern me.

My teeth are also crazy sensitive to pressure and my gums are achey again. I figure it has to be a combination of my teeth shifting, the pressure and weight the bands force on my teeth, and that with the added pressure from the weather changes my teeth are really feeling the weight of the surgical steel wires. One of my canines in the front with a hook on it is soooooo sensitive even if my lip puts pressure on it when I put on chapstick sends a sharp zing of pain down into my gum.

Another fun pain sensation is that now I have more feeling in the roof of my mouth and I can feel where my jaw was pulled forward and it kind of feels like a dent but when I put any pressure on it with my tongue it hurts like poking a bruise.

So with all of that new pain eating has been really difficult and painful, today I was able to eat about ten baby-spoonfuls of strawberry greek yogurt and for dinner I cut up about a quarter of a banana and sliced the pieces into tiny chunks but I ended up having to mash them up with the fork because trying to chew/squish them with my tongue was really uncomfortable, I added a little Nutella to make it taste better though. I'm thinking I might have to go back to pure liquids for a day or two until the pain passes. God I hope it only takes a day or two...I emailed the surgeons office yesterday to make sure my theory about the barometric pressure from the rain was right and the doctor told me that having pain is normal as the nerves continue to wake up and that yes joints and nerves can be sensitive to that kind of pressure after surgery and as long as I don't have unusual swelling, redness, fever, chills or any other symptoms of an infection its probably just nerves that decided to wake up ruin my day.