Metal Mouth Message Board

Impaction refers to a movement of your maxilla that surgeons sometimes make during LeFort I operations, specifically when they cut out a section of your maxilla and move it upwards towards your nose. You can search “over impaction” on this forum to read people’s complaints about what happens when su...

It sounds about right to me. You’d be under general surgery cutting through bone, preserving nerves, etc.

What kind of movements are you looking at for the LeFort I? I would caution you against impaction at your age. Regarding the anxiety, I would just say that by the time your surgery date rolls around it’ll just feel like you’re floating through the days if you’re anything like me. But the anxiety jus...

As I mentioned, many people on here are not happy with the results of their downgraft. I would recommend searching some up.

A number of people on here have gotten down graft revisions. You can probably search some up. Often times they’re still not happy and may or may not end up having a second revision. If you know exactly what you want and convey that articulately to your surgeon, and approve their surgical plan before...

Well, it sounds like now you know exactly what you want! That said, a revision downgraft and associated revision to the mandible won’t fix all of the issues you mentioned, so you need to manage your expectations. It likely won’t fix nerve damage, and may in fact make it worse, though the nerves take...

Well, the hardware is there to fix the bone in a certain position. It shouldn’t matter if the teeth are hitting each other, as the hardware should be keeping the bones rigidly fixed in position regardless. For some reason your hardware is not keeping the bone rigidly fixed. It’s allowing some moveme...

This surgery is very tough on the mind. Tougher than anyone could have warned me. If you’re concerned about your face losing its softness, that’s likely what you’ll see when you look in the mirror afterwards, even if people tell you that you look great. Post-surgical therapy can help with that, or y...

I think you’re making a good call seeing some other surgeons besides those two. I’m a bit surprised to hear that second surgeon’s suggestion that it will ossify nicely after 16 weeks.

A number of folks on here have experienced a non-union. Often times it seems that the bone broke during/shortly after the surgery contributing to it. You should take comfort knowing that follow-up corrective surgeries have a high success rate. If they want to use a graft anyways, you may be in luck ...

I haven’t heard of your skin bunching/wrinkle issue before but it sounds like a reasonable outcome of over-impaction. Just know that a couple mm over-impaction would only have a slight impact on that skin bunching. Your 5-7mm impaction is the real cause and you likely would have some skin bunching e...

The place where they cut the bone and slide it forward usually leaves a bump in the bone from where the cut was made. See the attached picture, which is a little exaggerated but you get the point. Mine were very easy to feel post-op but over the years they’ve disappeared. They slowly smooth out over...

A lot of us got the surgery for primarily cosmetic reasons, though unless it’s covered by insurance for functional issues, it will likely run you $50-100k. Your bones likely haven’t moved too much. I suspect it’s more of an issue of soft tissues. It’s extremely hard to predict how orthognathic surge...

It’s hard to tell without seeing your x-ray, but offhand you might consider a sliding genii plastic in lieu of the lower jaw. Either way, your surgery was today (usually in the morning) so it’s too late to change what they did. Happy healing, and remember you can always vent on here! It’s a tough ro...

Sure thing!