aaaahh!

[ali01]

A very bad day
Hello there, I was so happy to find this website and to find, that there are people who have had this surgery too. I am day 8 post op. I had lower jaw surgery to move my jaw forward along with my chin being pushed down. i do believe that there is a term for it i just cant spell it

I just feel like nothing is improving. My swelling is still quite bad, my neck and my lower lip are really swollen and puffy! To make things worse, my entire neck is yellow from the bruising! I just feel like its getting worse instead of better and that by day 8 surely it should have gone down a bit? I read that most of the swelling should be down 8 – 10 days, and if I am going to look like this for months im not sure what I can do! I am starting university in 3 weeks.
And there are elastic bands that are tightening my teeth! Ah.

[ohmyjaw]

It will get better, just hang in there! Make sure you are drinking lots of fluids, and go for walks.

I was still pretty swollen at 8 days post-op. It took about two weeks for my swelling to get much better. You should be a lot better by the time you start university.

[~danielle~]

I know what you mean that you feel like you should have made a bigger recovery in the amount of time since you surgery. Been there, done that!.. Its really important, though to realize that, 8 days is still really early if you look at the bigger picture. (That is not to say that you haven't made a ton of progress though!)

At 8 days I was still really swollen too (a lot more so than any of the pictures I've seen) and I had "shrek"-green bruising on my chin, neck, and most of my upper chest. Not to mention the red wine-colored bruising that I had on my lower jaw/chin and on part of my chest- it was aweful! I'd say that unlike the 8-10 day range that I've heard, most of my swelling was gone by 2-3 weeks. So hang in there It'll be so worth it!

I forgot to mention that I had BSSO (lower jaw moved forward) with genio (chin also moved foward) in June. Good luck with the rest of your recovery!

[ali01]

thank you so much for repying! My mum ended up showing photos of me when i first got out of surgery, there is definitely bit of an improvementAlthough these few days have been really full of ups and downs and emotionally draining! lol

Danielle, how long has it been since your surgery?

[phil]

ali01,

You will continue to improve gradually at this point, and ohmyjaw gives you good advice to keep well hydrated and take walks. Both those things will help, and are good for your overall wellness, anyway.

My face continued to change over the course of months. Now I am beginning to get used to what it looks like. The soft tissue seems to like to take its time!

Be well, and at peace,

Phil

[~danielle~]

My surgery was on June 23rd so its been about 7.5 months (its been a while! lol) and I'm still noticing small changes. Good to know that you are seeing an improvement- that always helps, especially when it feels like no progress is being made. I'm sure you'll be feeling a lot better by the time you have to start university! And my mum got me this stuff called "Arnica gel" at a natural foods/drugs store and I put it onto the areas with bruising every night and it really helped. I think you can also get arnica tablets and stuff too, but I havent tried them myself. And about the emotional side of things- I was such a mess! Almost everytime a food commercial came on I started crying... And it took me almsot a week to be able to look in the mirror without crying I give my family props for being able to tolerate me!