Metal Mouth Message Board

I have a high narrow palate resulting in a crossbite and underbite. I routinely breathe through my mouth at night and always feel like I have pressure in my sinuses. For those of you have have had lefort 1 or a any type of upper jaw surgery to correct a crossbite and underbite, did breathing through your nose improve?

Hi,

I had a surgical rapid palate extension, to make my upper jaw wider and my breathing did improve. I have to undergo a lefort 1 next month. I’ll let you know if it’s even better.

Yes, breathing through my nose did improve. Though it was better, I still had some difficulty breathing through my nose after my LeFort I so I saw a top ENT and he said my septum wasn’t too deviated or anything, and said it was just swelling due to allergies and dry air. So I’m taking allergy shots for the former, and I take a nasal spray (Nasacort Sensamist) for the latter during the cold season. It seems to help pretty well, but I haven’t reached the maintenance dose on the shots and it’s been cold and dry out since I started them, so I’m excited to see how I feel come this summer Good luck!

PS - I asked my surgeon afterwards whether the CCW impaction reduced the area of my nasal passages and she said she drilled out the bone there to make it bigger. The ENT said he could tell, and offered to drill it out a bit more if I really wanted, but he was confident it was the swelling.

Hi Blazing Blue-
A suggestion before you undergo your Leforte 1. During the procedure, your anesthesiologist will intubate you through your nose as the surgeon is going to be working in your mouth. I would respectfully suggest having an ENT consult before undergoing surgery to ensure you do not have a pre-existing deviated septum.

Intubating could be challenging if you have a deviated septum and it could also make it worse with a prolonged nasal intubation. Unfortunately one of the known complications of orthognathic surgery is the potential for a deviated septum. This is not one of the things that they will mention during your consent but if you have a deviated septum, you need to have a pre-operative anesthesia consult.

I learned about the known complication myself; after the fact, when I came out with a deviated septum. I was at a higher risk because I had a history of a deviated septum repair. Also my surgery was 8 hours and they had to go through old scar tissue so they were probably pulling quite a bit I imagine.

All ended well but I did have to go back to the OR six months post procedure for a rhinoplasty/ septo-plasty procedure.

Follow this link and look at #4 complication. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5342970/

Hi,
I hope your lefort 1 will go fine. Actually after my second lefort 1 my breathing changed for worse.Apparently the doctor brought my upper jaw too far forward. It was meant to cure sleep apnea but now sometimes I have trouble breathing through nose at night cause the airways are restricted. So I am looking at my third revision this year.