Recovery Timeline

Following is a brief timeline of important events regarding recovery from double jaw surgery. If you only had a single jaw operated on, your recovery will be much quicker than this.

Keep in mind that every person recovers at a different pace, and also that every surgeon has their own agenda during the recovery process. This is simply the sequence of important events that took place during my personal recovery.

Day 0 (Surgery)

  • You’ll be eating/drinking through a syringe
  • You’ll be unable to sleep very much
  • You may be freezing all night long due to the ice packs wrapped around your face
  • You’ll feel extremely weak
  • You won’t be able to talk
  • You will drool constantly (but you’ll have the suction tube in the hospital to take care of that)
  • Lots of blood will be churning up inside your nose, mouth and throat
  • Your jaw will randomly spasm (and it will be painful)

Day 1

  • Swelling will begin

Day 3

  • Swelling will peak
  • Your bowels will start working again around this time

Day 5

  • Feeling will begin to return to parts of your face
  • Swelling will start to decrease

Day 7 (1 week)

  • You’ll be able to move your mouth a bit easier, so your talking will become more understandable
  • At your 1-week appointment, you’ll be able to brush your teeth, both inside and out (and it will feel amazing)

Day 10

  • Drooling won’t be as rampant any longer
  • You’ll regain slight control over your lips

Day 14 (2 weeks)

  • Most of the swelling will be gone
  • You’ll be able to start drinking from a cup (although it may be messy at first)
  • You can probably remove a few of the elastics clamping your teeth together, so talking will become infinitely more simple
  • Sleeping through the night should no longer be a problem

Day 15

  • Your elastics will start snapping daily, due to your rapid increase in speaking

Day 18

  • Your breath will become bearable again, due to the fact that you’ve been eating different foods and brushing more often

Day 21 (3 weeks)

  • Your energy will start to come back. Take advantage of it! Go for walks and take your bike out for a spin.

Day 22

  • You’ll be receiving substantial feeling back in your upper lip and cheeks. Your nose, lower lip and chin, however, will remain completely numb.

Day 28 (4 weeks)

  • Talking will hardly be an issue any longer. If you have a splint/bite plate in, you’ll sound ridiculous, but people will be able to understand you.
  • Your desire to be social and spend time with people will return in full force. Make sure you take advantage of it, and remember that your friends are not judging you.

Day 29

  • Feeling will begin to return to your lower lip and chin. That feeling will come in the form of pins and needles, but you’ll appreciate it regardless. If no feeling has returned to these parts yet, don’t worry. Surgeons say that it make take up to 90 days for feeling to begin coming back.

Day 31 (1 month)

  • If your elastics are off, you’ll be able to speak quite well by now
  • You won’t drool or spill any longer while eating

Day 32

  • You’ll have most of your normal energy back by now
  • You’ll begin to feel like you’re ready to take life on again. Be warned though: you’re not quite there yet. Give it another month before you go crazy.

Day 38

  • More patches of feeling will return to your chin and lower lip
  • You should no longer have to wear elastics during the day

Day 42 (6 weeks)

  • You should be able to drink through a straw quite easily by now

Day 45

  • Most of your stitches should have dissolved by now

Day 49 (7 weeks)

  • If you had a splint in, it should definitely be removed by now
  • Be prepared to readjust back into the world of orthodontics

Day 56 (8 weeks)

  • You should be able to eat with a small spoon or fork again
  • Licking your lips should be no problem at this point

Day 58

  • You’ll most likely be allowed to blow your nose again. Be gentle, though, because you don’t want to pop a blood vessel.

Day 70 (10 weeks)

  • If you haven’t been able to eat solid food yet, start now. Even if the task of eating involves mashing soft food up against the roof of your mouth, do it anyway. You’ll never gain your strength back on liquid alone.

Day 84 (12 weeks)

  • You should enjoy the freedom of eating just about anything you want by now
  • Consider practising whistling in order to break up the scar tissue that’s sure to be keeping your upper lip from enjoying its full range of motion

Day 90 (3 months)

  • Your three months have finally come to an end! Enjoy eating, breathing and smiling to their full effect.
  • Changes will be fairly slow from this point forward. The results you find yourself with at the 6-month mark will most likely be the results you’ll live with for the rest of your life.

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1740 Comments

  1. Stephanie, that’s less than 3 months from now! You’ll be smiling brighter than ever before!

    I know what you mean when you say it still takes effort to eat. It makes you appreciate each meal, though. 🙂

  2. hey, today marks day 64! how time flies when your having fun!! i have been on a normal solid diet for 5 weeks now but still takes alot of effort to eat, i also find i dont produce as much saliva as i did previous so makes food harder to swallow. i have seen my orthodontist this week and following my double jaw surgery and septoplasty i am due to get my braces off on 25th jan 2012 😀 I cant wait!!! x

  3. Lyn Merryfeather

    November 2, 2011 at 9:25 am

    I remember I dreamed about juicy chicken, mashed potatoes and soft-cooked carrots. The thing is, the recovery is so gradual, or it was for me, that by the time I could eat that stuff it was sort of anticlimactic. I don’t, however, ever take eating for granted after this. It is, truly, one of the most pleasant experiences. Happy dreams, and bon appetit…very soon.

  4. Hehe, they are good dreams though, aren’t they?! You’ll be eating again soon, my friend!

  5. 7 Days Post on upper only, and had my first night of nothing but dreams about solid food. I would pay a small fortune to eat a hotdog right now…

  6. Hi Ben,

    Every surgeon prescribes different treatment options. If those are the dates and milestones your surgeon laid out for you, perhaps you’ll be in good shape within the month.

    I’ve met many people who were eating soft foods by week 2, so it’s definitely possible. My recovery is the slowest I’ve encountered thus far.

    After a month’s time, you’ll likely still find work and giving presentations fairly exhausting, but your energy will return quite quickly once you start eating again.

    Best of luck, my friend!

  7. Hey Graham!

    I’m post-op day 5 and a bit worried about the timeline you layed out. I’m a business owner and need to get back to managing my staff, talking on the phone, giving presentations, etc. I was told I only need to take 1 month off work…

    I was also told I would have liquids for as little as 1 week and maybe 2 weeks. The surgeon said I would switch to elastics at that point and that the splint would be out by week 4, so I could return to work.

    Based on the surgeon’s timeline for me pre-surgery, I should be chewing soft food in a couple days… but this doesn’t seem to jive at all with your experience. Bait and switch by the doc??

    Ben

  8. EmJ, good to hear from you again! I’m glad you don’t require a second surgery. That is most definitely good news!

    My only tip for relearning how to chew is to take it slowly. If you’re in a rush, I can almost guarantee you’ll bite your tongue a few times, and that can be surprisingly painful.

    Slow and steady wins the race!

  9. Sammy, it’s great to hear that you’re staying on track with your recovery. Going out with a scarf over your mouth will hardly seem out of place now that the cold weather is arriving!

  10. Thought I’d write a quick up date. I am 6 weeks post op (On the 2nd Nov)

    I don’t need more surgary, that they were talking about wich is REALLY good news.

    My lips are now closing normally but still look a little bit lob sided. But that is slowly getting back to normal.
    My bottom lip and chin are still a bit numb but the feeling is slowly coming back, so hopefully it will continue.
    It is nice to feel I own my bottom lip again, if you get what I mean.

    I Have been able to drink out of a normal cup now for a week or so without dribbeling most of it down me. Hopefully when I go back to the hospital on Wed I will get the go ahead to start chewing and eating normally again. Looking forward to eating normal food again, but thinking it will be strange to chew etc after 6 weeks. Any Tips?

    I am also back at work but only on half days for a couple of weeks. I still have elastics on so talking is a bit difficult but people can understand me. Hopeing they will come off on Wed aswell or just ware them at night or somthing.

    Hope everyone else is Ok! xx

  11. So day 12 for me…and I’m happy to say it been fairly uneventful…which is good!

    Saw my orthodontist ast week to have the band put on my back teeth but was unable to as i had so much swelling! Going back for that next week.

    A lot of the swelling has gone down now, but not enough for me to venture out without a scarf over my mouth, haha! Bottom lip and chin are still numb, but have started getting the pins and needles feeling you mention in your timeline. Its not a lot, but enough for me to feel it! To be honest, I can handle the numbness in my chin and bottom lip, i just hate the swelling!

    And Graham, u were right…the first 2 weeks were soooo frustrating, mainly because im so bored…and hungry. Im a huge food lover, so not being able to chew is killing me! Talking to friends on the phone and having visitors is great, but I miss socialising! Oh well, hopefully soon!

    Hope everyone else is getting on well xx

  12. Hi Lyn,

    Thank you.. =) i just hate being scolded by her, so I’m doing every possible excercise she’s given me to try.. I’m coming back to work tomorrow, so i’m just hoping that customers will be able understand me..

  13. Haha yeah it does suck but i guess it will be worth it! Ahh, I guessed i would have to miss out on my christmas dinner, soo sad 🙁 lol but i suppose i will appreciate it more than ever next year. I can live without the food so long as im able to enjoy the day with family 😀

    My 20th birthday is just 3 days after surgery too so im hopeful i might be home from hospital even though ill not be up to much lol!

    Seems ive been given the worst possible time ever to have the surgery but the waiting list is huge, so im happy to have it sorted!

    I also just realised you’d replied after i added you on facebook haha im not stalking you i promise :L!

  14. Hello to you from Canada, Shauneen!

    If you undergo the surgery in a couple weeks, you probably won’t be able to fully enjoy those delicious Christmas dinners you’re hinting at. You’ll be able to speak enough to have a good time with your family (and you may be able to eat quite a bit already), but you’ll likely have to accept a lighter meal this time around.

    It seems like there is no “safe” time to take on this operation. You’re always going to miss either Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas. Shucks, right?

  15. Hey Graham ,

    Im due for double jaw surgery in just over 2 weeks time. I have an overbite though so my surgery will be slightly different.

    I just wanted to say thanks for posting all your updates, you look great now :D. Ive really been encouraged by everything i read on here as i prepare for my surgery and definately plan to refer back to it during recovery. To begin with i was scared I would hate the outcome ,i didnt want to change the shape of my face too much as i dont have a huge problem with how i look now lol. But now im actually excited to have it all done and over with so i can enjoy my new face haha. Im not really nervous but hoping i’ll have recovered enough to fully enjoy Christmas which will be roughly 6 weeks post surgery. How did u feel at this stage?

    You’ll also be encouraged to know that your blog is helping people all over the world as im writing all the way from Ireland haha!

  16. Lyn Merryfeather

    October 20, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    Diana:

    Three fingers wide at 5 weeks!! I can only do that now at 6 months!

    We are all different and every recovery is unique. Whatever you are “supposed” to be able to do, according to your surgeon, needs to be taken with a hefty dose of salt. You can do what you can do and the rest will follow in its own time.

    And, as Graham says, there is no medication known that will deal with numbness. This is due to handling the nerve during surgery. It gradually improves as the nerve establishes its connections again. The left half of my chin is still a bit numb although I do have sensation in it.

    Sounds like you are doing great!

  17. Thanks Graham!
    You’re right, I shouldn’t worry. It’s just my doctor kept on saying I should be able to open my mouth 3 fingers wide by now so I thought maybe I was just slow at recovering. Thank you for encouragement Graham..

  18. Hi Diana,

    At 5 weeks, restricted movement in your jaw is still fairly normal. I wouldn’t worry about how wide you’re able to open your mouth until you’re back to eating regular foods again.

    I also wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that you hit your chin with your phone. Your jaw is stronger than you think–even in its recovery state–so you’d have to jar it incredibly hard to cause any damage. The basic rule of thumb is that if it doesn’t hurt, there’s likely nothing wrong.

    I didn’t receive any meds to help with numbness. You can’t medicate bruised nerves. They just need to heal on their own.

    Stay positive!

  19. Sammy, you’re home! My advice for you now is to go for walks, find a good TV show to watch and drink as much water through that wonderful syringe as you can. The first 2 weeks will be frustrating, but you’ll recover quickly!

  20. Hi all!
    I’m almost 5 weeks post op and I’m feeling better and better! I do have a concern though, I still can’t open my mouth any bigger then a finger wide.. And I accidentally hit my chin with my phone just now and I’m worried I might cause my jaw to shift or something, but it does not hurt and I didn’t see any changes in my jaws.. Should I be worrying?

    Oh, and 1 more question, were any of you given any meds to help with the numbness?

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