1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

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lealicious
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:00 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

#16 Post by lealicious »

It's a decision I have to make as well. My teeth are horrible... well, to me they are horrible. My family and boyfriend think it gives me character. But I am tired of making these funny faces when taking a photo, and can't imagine how horrible my wedding photos will come out when I get married.

I have quite a large overbite, bucked teeth, and severe crowding on the bottom. I've been wanting braces all my life but never had the money to do so. Now I'm 25 and I want to do something about it before I'm at least 30, so I can enjoy having a nice smile for a very long time.

My orthodontist said I won't have good results if I don't get the surgery. My bite won't improve and my profile won't change. He pretty much said I had to make the decision about surgery before treatment starts because the treatment plans would be completely different with or without surgery.

I chose the surgery route, so ended up having to get 4 extractions - 2 lower premolars and 2 upper wisdoms. I still don't know if I have made the right decision, and if I will end up getting the surgery. But if I opt out, I will end up with an even worse bite.

So in a way I have cornered myself and don't really have a choice in the end. If I want really good results in the end, that is.

My biggest fear is nerve damage. Permanent nerve damage. Nerve damage in a sense that I would lose the ability to move my mouth properly. I don't know if that is possible because I think the nerve that can be damaged is a sensory nerve, not a motor nerve.

Anyway, long story short, I am still unsure about the surgery, even if it will improve my smile and stop this damn clicking and popping.

daffodil
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:40 pm

#17 Post by daffodil »

lealicious, my doctor told me that if I got permanent nerve damage it would probably just be a funny feeling or odd numbness, that it wouldn't be a loss of function with me drooling all over myself or anything.

lealicious
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:00 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

#18 Post by lealicious »

Yeah, I was told the same thing. But I can't help but worry. When you think about it, they are cutting and pulling at your jaws. I just don't think I'll ever be completely comfortable with the idea of surgery on my face, I just have to hope for the best.

A friend of mine had lower jaw surgery, she had some numbness but it seems to be coming back slowly. I have to get both upper and lower. I hear all the risks for lower jaw surgery, but I'm more worried about the upper jaw part. I'm not sure which is more risky?
10/03/10 - Upper braces
11/05/10 - First adjustment

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marycotter5678
Posts: 157
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:54 pm

#19 Post by marycotter5678 »

I am sorry that you had this happen to you. I remember when I went to my first consultation with the oral surgeon, ne of the first things he mentoned is that there may be permanent nerve damage especially in the chin or lower lip. He said that it doesn't happen very often it is a possibility and that he lookes at it as "you get a perfect bite but may lose some feeling in the chin/lip as a result" - it is a tradeoff. To me that tradeoff isn't a bad dal at all... Think about it --- isnt it better that you now have the bite/face structure you wanted even though you had to give up little feeling in your chin?
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Double-Jaw Surgery: Lefort I & BSSO (May 4, 2010)

CandyApple
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2015 6:56 pm

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#20 Post by CandyApple »

Wondering if Smurfy comes on here and How she is doing now ? This is an old post but my issue sounds a lot like hers with lower lip?

Metalmouth33
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2017 10:53 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#21 Post by Metalmouth33 »

CandyApple wrote:Wondering if Smurfy comes on here and How she is doing now ? This is an old post but my issue sounds a lot like hers with lower lip?
On top of anything else someone might suggest, I'd recommend taking a fish oil capsule daily, and now and then have a 15-30min warm bath and just let your head sit almost completely under the water for a lot it. Submersed enough so that just your lips and nostrils are out of the water, still allowing you to breathe. You might also try applying some Vitamin E oil on and around the affected areas, you can even apply very minor amounts in your mouth if you need to. Placing them on your gums/inner lips/palate.

I find a warm bath helps to relax my face entirely. I have some weird annoying tingling feeling in a couple areas on my cheeks, the bath helps those go away. Not immediately, but maybe an hour or so after I have cooled down from the bath.

You might also want to research what other kind of foods could potentially help you. The whole idea is to generate better than ideal conditions for any nerve regeneration process that is still to take place.

I don't know long ago your surgery was, but if it was recent I wouldn't think a hot bath is a good idea until the wound has healed. You don't want to cause unnecessary blood flow to an area that is still mending itself.

Marriedonmaui
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:31 pm

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#22 Post by Marriedonmaui »

My numbness is very intense like fire ants on my chin. My surgeon has never had this happen before and I have been put on gabapentin possibly for the rest of my life to deal with the painful "numbness" it makes me so tired and really only takes the edge off. This sucks

samas
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2017 5:03 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#23 Post by samas »

Hi Married,

How long are you post op?

Caitrm
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2016 11:56 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#24 Post by Caitrm »

I've had a ton of success using vitamin b complex!
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kevinallitt
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:05 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#25 Post by kevinallitt »

Hi,
I also had a genioplasty, I'm now 25 years after the operation and after a life time of pulling toughing and looking like a nutter who is retarded I can finally say I am able to move my mouth sort of correctly.
My surgeon twisted my muscles when he put them back, I asked him to use dissolvable places in the operation, he charged me for them and used wires instead.
He moved my chin a measurement we didn't agree on and one half of my muscle ripped after surgery when I went home, he complained when I went to hospital as this was private, he said he was telephoned on the golf course and I had interrupted his game.

He amazingly like you said 95% of his patients made a full recovery, I wonder if this figure is just a figure they say.
when I went back to have my stitches out he was having trouble, bear in mind these where dissolving stitches and could be left but he dug a pair of scissors into my chin from inside my mouth and I was trying to say stop stop with my mouth open
trying to get away and he lunged and went snip, I got an electrical belt across my face and lost feeling to my lower lip. He panicked and left the room, he came back after he had calmed himself down, I knew exactly what he had done, he had cut my nerve to my lips. The nerve does re-join but not always in alignment so what you can end up with is some nerves that where on your chin can end up connecting to some that where on your lip and so I have had altered feeling now for 25 years and counting, at first when I touched my lips after the initial pain numb (no-one tells you numbness is painful you thinks its without feeling but that nerve does end somewhere just not when it was supposed to)
I felt it on the flesh below my lips and when I tickled below my lips it felt like my lips where been touched.
Kissing from that day forward was totally trashed for me.
I then had the hole in the left hand side of my mouth to deal with for which he did nothing and the right hand muscle was twisted, my shin was moved 7milimeters, he could have stretched the muscle over this decided to push my muscles apart and then draw them down and stick the inside of my mouth that was never ever attached to anything before down around the bone graft, I lost all the space in my mouth, my lip sat right up to my teeth could not pronounce words correctly, I was like a ventriloquist dummy, I could no longer move my mouth I had to move my jaw to achieve this, the muscles had been spread way beyond 7mm and was so tight that one side of the muscle gave way and it came off hence the hole, this now felt more normal on that side, the surgeon would not and refused to do anything, I guess it would be evidence that something was wrong if he did, so instead he decided to leave me, no other surgeon would go near me to help, they just said go back to him. I spent thousands trying to get out of this mess and that's when thousands was worth thousands, I tried involving solicitors. the doctor just kept saying there is nothing wrong with you, I can give you some mind altering drugs which will make your brain think differently, he also said 95% of my patients make a full recovery but if your one of my 5% then its 100% for you, So he took bone from my Leg for the graft, My leg went numb, he operated on my chin and didn't use dissolving plates but permanent wires and kept the money for the plates which where £500 at the time, something I never was allow to see as well, he twisted my muscles, my mouth sucked into my face and moved horizontally instead of vertically, it was asymmetrical and when he took out the stitches he permanently damaged the nerves to my lips.
All this said, 25 years later on and I can see your post is 10 years on, I didn't get relief from my mouth sucking into my face until 20 years had passed, but remember I have actively tugged and pushed with my tongue the offending muscle on the right every day nearly, at 20 years its stopped bumping my teeth when I move my mouth upward or what was supposed to be upward.
and after year 20 the muscles had given enough for me to be able to work them around, previously my mouth was just a block fastened and the flesh has literally had to part and pull off the bone a little like if you had webbed fingers and you had to work your fingers until you got rid of the web and they started to look like normal hands do. I had to recreate the gap in my lower mouth.
So if you working on it as hard as I was then 20 years to get some peace and 25 to get to a point that you can ignore it.
You go into these operation to enhance yourself and you come out with something that wrecks your life.
I can say 25 years later on My lip is a lot better than it used to be, just naturally it felt like sticky tape was stuck to it without me doing anything, a few years after the operation I had a drink from a water fountain and that's when I realised how had the nerves was in my face, I could sense where I could feel the water and where I could not, it presented what seamed like a massive whole, all that has now recovered to a point that I don't notice, I only have some funny stuff on my lip and I eventually got the feeling back in my leg.

I would so never ever have a genioplasty to anyone, if you want it use the none surgical method, where they can inject your bone and it will grow on its own, My surgeon, after he operated on me told me about this when I was stuck in the situation and no one would help, I think he wanted me to react so he could wash his hands of me, I wanted to but didn't give him the easy option out.

so that was my disaster 25 year unfortunately if you actively exercise your mouth before you will start to feel normal again

kevinallitt
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:05 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#26 Post by kevinallitt »

One further thing I forgot to mention was numb teeth, which are not always numb but feel different, I did have numb teeth,
People don't realise that if you cant feel your teeth what it really means as they think they cannot feel there teeth anyhow, WRONG!!!!
I cannot say that loud enough, if you cannot feel your teeth you cannot feel your food, you cannot eat anything that means you have to centralise it and crush like a pea or a nut as the food just slides away.
This was the biggest thing I realised when I lost and had altered feeling with my teeth.
Eating was horrendous.

This loss of feeling is not a trade off for anything, and if someone thinks it is then they have not experienced it so if your thinking about a procedure like this, all I can say is I would never ever have done this if I had another chance at living my life again unfortunately you don't and wrong things here and leave you in a worse state and now you have to try and work to keep a living while your in hell, it can trash your life and it did mine for so many years, Happy to say I'm back in the bike and living a normal life again as I am now able to hide what is going on inside from the outside world who struggle to understand and just think you have a problem don't get involved which affects you in the work place as well.

Carno
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2020 11:47 am

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#27 Post by Carno »

That sounds really horrible. I had a genioplasty 8 weeks ago and have had no issues whatsoever.

The procedure itself was definitely not the issue for you, but rather the incompetent surgeon.

10qwert23
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:08 pm

Re: 1.5 years post-op and devastated after last visit to surgeon

#28 Post by 10qwert23 »

I am sorry to hear that! this was posted a long time ago. Do you have any updates on if your lip or chin regained some sensations.

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