Surgery was on 8/20 - Pain/Infection Help!!

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#1 Post by **mp921** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:30 pm

I'm 30 years old and went in for a Mandibular Osteotomy the morning of August 20th to correct my overbite. The surgeon called my husband in the waiting room and told him everything went great with the surgery. When I woke up in recovery I was very nauseated (taken care of immediately) and in a lot of pain near my left ear. I continued to have a great deal of pain that day and when the surgeon visited me that night in the hospital, he thought the pressure bandage was too tight at my ear and he loosened it. This helped somewhat. But I continued to have to use the Morphine pump and could tell when it was time for another dose of Torodal in my IV throughout the night/next morning. He then told me that he had to move one side forward a bit more than the other and that I have a really small mouth that was hard to work in. Also that I had more bleeding on the left side than the right.

My lip is numb but I can feel a tiny bit of sensation. My chin is completely numb and burning/painful.

I had bruising on my right cheek/jaw just hours after surgery. The next day when the pressure bandage was removed, I already had bruising on both jaws. When I was discharged, I was feeling pretty good. The pain was minimal (although I was having pain) and the swelling wasn't too bad yet although I looked like a chipmunk.

Two days later things took a turn for the worst. The pain was pretty severe and the swelling was massive and rock hard. I had a hard area of swelling even way up over my left temple. During this time I was taking antibiotics at home to prevent an infection (I also had antibiotics in my iv). The surgeon saw me on Monday. He gave me an iv of fluids and torodal, adjusted the elastics and told me he thought I was having muscle spasms. I was given a muscle relaxer and phenergan for nausea since I was extremely queasy. The next day I tried to sleep because I was in so much pain. On Wednesday morning my husband had to call because I was miserable. Prescription pain meds weren't controlling the pain and I was extremely nauseated, even on the phenergan. He stopped by my house (they still do this??) to check on me and thought everything was okay. The next day I went to his office. He irrigated and cleaned in there really good. He took a couple of stitches out and put in some packing. Said I had some pus coming out from both sides. Then on Friday I went back in, he took out the packing and decided to stitch in drains instead. At this point he said I was really infected on both sides and that's what was causing the ROCK HARD swelling on both sides. He would push on an area of painful swelling and pus would ooze. Went in on Saturday to have everything cleaned out again.

He has told me how rare and uncommon this is and says he has no idea what caused this infection. Today he told me that sometimes he'll have a patient with a small infection on one side, but never a severe infection on both sides like mine. What in the world has happened to me? He said it was nothing I did. So what was it?? I took all of the meds as I was supposed to. Rinsed as I was instructed. I'm so distraught over this!

At 9 days post op, most people are way beyond where I am in terms of recovery. Has anyone experienced anything similar and still had a great outcome in the end? I am still in need of prescription pain meds (which he wants me off of BUT I'm in lots of pain), am fighting infection on both sides which is causing lumpy rock hard swelling and pain, and dealing with tons of tmj pain on the left side. Please someone tell me it WILL be okay, just may take longer???

When I asked him today why this happened he said he didn't know, but that it was rare. He said it might have been some type of gel he used to stop bleeding on both sides??

#2 Post by PJ » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:37 pm

Wow! I have no experience with what you are going through, but I am so sorry to hear about your infections. The only thing that comes to mind for me is: Are you on any meds, like Prednisone, etc, that could affect your body's ability to fight infection? And/or do you have any underlying condition that may have reduced your immunity? I'm sure you probably covered this with your surgeon, but it's all I can think of. I hope he has you on the right course of antibiotics. If so, then you should kick this soon. I wish you all the best. Please keep us posted!

#3 Post by **loulou123** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:04 am

Sorry to hear about your infection. A similar thing happened to me, but i only had infection on one side. Like you it was obvious from the beginning that something was very wrong. The link to my blog is at the bottom of this post and it tells the whole story.

Good luck with getting this sorted out, keep pushing for answers. Its horrible when things go wrong, but your not alone.

#4 Post by **mp921** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:12 pm

PJ wrote:Wow! I have no experience with what you are going through, but I am so sorry to hear about your infections. The only thing that comes to mind for me is: Are you on any meds, like Prednisone, etc, that could affect your body's ability to fight infection? And/or do you have any underlying condition that may have reduced your immunity? I'm sure you probably covered this with your surgeon, but it's all I can think of. I hope he has you on the right course of antibiotics. If so, then you should kick this soon. I wish you all the best. Please keep us posted!

I know this is old now and I'm all cleared up, but it still bothers me. I'll never know why I was the only one of my OS's patients who has developed an infection post surgery like this (or so they tell me). I was given Decadron right before surgery and then several more times in my iv during my hospital stay. I'd had a Decadron injection 4 months prior for a sinus infection and then again at 2 months prior because of an allergic reaction I had. Could all of the decadron have lowered my immunity? Why would they use so much during the hospital stay if it has the potential to lower your resistance to infection? Irritating!