Brandy's Braces, SARPE, Jaw Surgery Journal

This is my daily journal to my eventual perfect smile and Apnea free life. It logs my surgeries, and daily progress.

Friday, July 13, 2007

7 Weeks Post Op

Today is 7 weeks post op. I can't believe I have actually made it this far. I remember reading Steph, Amy's, and Jennicole's blogs when they were this far and thinking....Wow, it is going to be so long til I get there! Well as you know, time does go by very quickly (thank goodness) and here I am 7 weeks out now.
Nothing really new or remarkable to report today. Just continued daily slow improvement. I can tell you though that I'm still very much aware that my jaws are healing. Chewing is not fun due to everything feeling all numb and whacko, and my jaw muscles are still very tender and sore. I use heat on them several times a day and just massage them a bit to help loosen things up. Range of motion is steadily increasing too, I can open to 32mm now.

Thought I would include some comparison pics just so you could see how far I have come. This photo above was taken today (7 wks post op)





This one was taken at 4 weeks post op. You can really see how the swelling has come down in my upper sinus area, as well as in my lower jaw area and lips.









The most noticible change has been in my teeth!
This pic is 10 days post op.



You can really see how the swelling in my upper and lower lips has come down here also. Look how puffy they are at 10 days (I look like I had collagen injections)and how much thinner they are now.


This pic was taken today (7 wks Post op)


Overall I'm very happy with the way things are progressing. My apnea appears to be gone, I'm sleeping very well at night now and dreaming like crazy. My body is still in recovery mode, as well as catching up from the long term sleep deficit. Even at 7 weeks I'm still sleeping 11-12 hours a night. I don't feel near as run down though and have a lot more energy. I'm back at the gym now too, doing advanced step classes and light weight lifting. I never had any real weakness from all of this and truthfully, health wise, I'm feeling really great. It should just keep getting better from here I would think.

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4 Comments:

  • At 4:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You and your teeth look amazing!!

    I think I read somewhere that you have Kaiser? Did you have a good experience with them?

     
  • At 7:53 PM, Blogger Brandyleigh35 said…

    Thanks! I'm sorry, I don't have Kaiser so can't report on them.

    Brandy

     
  • At 10:54 AM, Blogger amycq said…

    Things look great! I'm 5 days out from getting my Upper LeFort 1 and Genio done.

    So the dreams don't stop after either huh?! I keep having dreams about the surgery and after. Last night it was a dream that I woke up after surgery and my bite didn't feel any different to me but everyone around me was so excited about the results. The dreams about my braces falling off have been swapped with surgery dreams!

    take care
    -amy

     
  • At 3:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I had a three-piece Le Fort osteotomy July 5th, and the pain in my jaw muscles is nearly gone. I wonder if this is maybe because of the lingering numbness? Did your pain go away for a bit and then come back?

    Your teeth look great, everything looks like it's healing up fantastically. I'm kinda worried about what everything's going to look like after the swelling goes down; I keep obsessing over whether my surgeons cut just a few millimetres too much off of my skull. Did you have any concerns directly after the surgery, before everything started looking mostly-normal again?

    The worst part of the whole thing, though, is that for the past two days I've had something stuck on the back of my tongue. I can't get to it, I can't drink it off, I can't rub it off, and my surgeon hasn't yet taught me to remove my own bands—it's only been a week since the surgery—and it's DRIVING ME INSANE. I can use a glass now though, which makes me happy.

    Once you could use cups, did you continue to use whatever tube-feeding device you had? Or did you switch? I'm wondering about damages to teeth enamel and whatnot...

    I think I worry too much. I'd love for you to get in touch, though, my email is izzy.ontheverve@gmail.com. It'd be great to talk to someone who's already been through something similar.

     

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