Plate removal

[snapdresser]

Anyone out there had any or all of their plates removed? I can feel them in there and it’s pretty annoying. How’d it feel after plate removal? Back to your pre-op normal?

[Eranthe]

Hi snapdresser,

I haven't had them removed yet, but will be soon. Weirdly I have recently had intermittent pain around my top left plate and screws. I can feel the actual screw through my gum tissue and the area there has started to become periodically irritated. My surgery was a year ago, so strange for it to be doing that now.

[snapdresser]

This surgery has an awful lot of strange side-effects, it seems You going to make an appt with your surgeon to see what they say about it?

[snapdresser]

For anyone interested/for posterity for people down the road interested in this process:

I met with my surgeon yesterday to discuss the possibility of getting my plates removed. She said that they do remove plates sometimes, but usually only if they're infected. As they don't hurt, I had a hard time conveying to her why, exactly, I want them out. The best words I could come up with at the time were "annoying" and "distracting", but what it really feels like is if I had braces on, except way higher up on the maxilla and lower down on the mandible. It's not that they hurt, but it feels like a foreign object in there, and I'd like to avoid going through life feeling like I have braces on 24 hours a day. I thought it would go away in time, but now that I'm more than 2 years post-op, it seems like it's not improving much. The front office is going to start submitting paperwork to my insurance to get approval, but my surgeon asked me to think about the impact (GA at the hospital, swelling all over again, stitches, etc.) and consider if what I'm "feeling" might actually be numbness in the meantime. So today I'm being very conscious of that and trying to make sure it's really the plates that I'm feeling. She warned me that she expects an insurance appeal to be necessary and there may ultimately be some out-of-pocket expenses. Hopefully not!

My surgeon was walking a fine line between discouraging me from elective surgery and validating my feelings. I think she did a good job, but it was difficult for me to convey what it feels like and why that feeling is a problem for me.

[Nozzelnut]

I've been wondering about the plate in my chin... Its the only place I still have altered sensation. I haven't met with my surgeon in quite some time; but will bring it up when I make my appointment after my braces come off.

[snapdresser]

You have a plate in your chin? Interesting. I just have wire and I know Jaime has a couple screws. I didn’t know they secured SGs with plates. Yours was an advancement? I too had some altered sensation (decreased sensation in my case) in my chin, but it’s a pretty small area and I don’t get that “foreign object” feel from it. It’s pretty nutty how this surgery affects people. There are sooooo many possible side effects. I guess we’re just lucky that ours are relatively insignificant

[Nozzelnut]

Yes I have 2, 3 hole plates on either side; from when they did the sliding chin thing... probably only 7-10 mm in total length, so not huge but I can feel them when I press.

[snapdresser]

Huh. It seems like doing screws/wire/plates for the chin is just based on the surgeon’s preference. I know some folks have a tight sensation in the chin. I wonder if one type of fixation is more likely to have that side effect