Recovery Tips
Following is a summary of the most important things I learned during my recovery from double jaw surgery.
- Drink lots of prune juice and water. Your toilet time will be far from enjoyable for the first couple of weeks because you’re likely to be severely dehydrated. The prune juice will provide your body with the fiber it needs to work those bowels properly, but fiber is useless without water because it won’t dissolve in your body. I recommend a bare minimum of 1 L of water per day. Drink 2 L per day as soon as you can.
- Before you attempt to pull any dead skin off of your lips, be absolutely certain that it’s not a stitch. I learned this the hard way.
- Start using medicated lip balm immediately following your return to your own home. If you don’t, you’ll end up with flaps of dead skin that are half an inch in diameter, and I promise you they won’t feel good when they catch on your braces.
- Apply heat to your face 3-4 times per day for the first 5-6 weeks to help with the swelling. The heat will also help you fall asleep.
- Begin each day at a decent time. If you sleep most of the day, you won’t be able to sleep at night, and you’ll hate yourself for it. Get out of bed, shower, eat some breakfast and brush your teeth and you’ll enjoy each day a lot more. (This is good advice for any day of your life, but it especially applies when you’re on the verge of depression from having jaw surgery.)
- Go to bed on time. Yawning will cause you quite a bit of pain, so prevent it by getting the right amount of sleep during the proper hours.
- As soon as you’re able to talk clearly enough for friends and family to understand you, call people and be social. Go outside and enjoy nature. Whatever you do, ensure you don’t fall into a trap of loneliness and self-pity.
- Start drinking from a cup as soon as you’re physically able to. Your upwards trek back to having full energy begins the day you can throw your syringes in the garbage.
- Eat solid food as soon as your surgeon gives you the go-ahead. It’ll be a slow, tedious and frustrating process, but you need to go through with it in order to build your jaw muscles back up and learn how to chew properly once again.
- It may take some time to get used to your new smile and your newly structured face. Don’t be ashamed of yourself. You don’t look funny at all. You’re simply not used to looking like you’re supposed to.
- And lastly, don’t worry about your looks, bite or facial feeling for at least 6 months. You may have an open bite, but you’ll wake up one morning and your teeth will have migrated back together. You may be completely numb, but feeling will return almost overnight.
If you have any questions about the recovery process, or perhaps have other pointers to share with upcoming jaw surgery patients, feel free to jot them down in the comments.
May 1, 2012 at 7:50 am
Graham, you helped my daughter Jo Lynn Campbell all through her double jaw surgery recovery and you were a great encouragement. She had surgery a year and a half ago, but is still having tightness and discomfort continually all around her mouth. Do you still experience that, and is there some solution?
Thank you,
Christie Hamby
April 26, 2012 at 5:10 am
Finally got my posts out, 2 weeks after my wires were cut. I think the sites are the worst pain and discomfort I’ve felt through this whole ordeal. Still losing weight, I guess since my stomach shrunk. No problem there!! Good luck to all of you, my fracture wasn’t anything like what most of you are going through, but still sucked! Hang in there everyone. Cindy
April 26, 2012 at 12:44 am
Hey Matt,
I would definitely not play baseball anytime before your six-week mark. You’ll likely have very little energy until that time, and if you take a baseball to the face, your jaw will probably shift out of place (perhaps requiring surgery to fix it again).
Ask your surgeon for a second opinion, but my recommendation is to stay away from active sports for at least six weeks.
Good luck!
April 25, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Hey Graham
First of all great site great tips on recovery. The only thing I want to ask though is what can I do. I know the first week I’m pretty much bed ridden. Week 2 I have no idea u said I could go outside. Does that mean I can play sports bc I have a huge baseball tournaments 4 weeks today . All I got down was a 3 cut 2 piece upper jaw alignment I was wondering if I would be ready to play ball
April 23, 2012 at 7:15 pm
PS. If you are having trouble like me with the insane amount of drooling; take a piece of foamy medical tape and tape that “elephant lip” up. It works like a charm- until it gets soggy and a new piece is needed!
April 23, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Glad I could make you laugh….even my surgeon chuckled at me- and he isnt the “giggling kind”. I actually planted a flower garden today. I probably felt a little better than I should have, because now my nose wont stop bleeding. The doc said I progressing beautifully and ahead of schedule. Now, to figure out these dang rubber bands………..
April 23, 2012 at 10:25 am
Hi Bree!
First off, I must say that I chuckled when you describe your bottom lip as making you look like an elephant. I pictured a person having just woken up from jaw surgery to discover that they had grown a trunk in the operating room! Eeek!
I hope you manage to distract yourself enough to get through this next week so you can start looking forward to summer!
April 22, 2012 at 7:29 pm
And, its 100% true that day four will emit some kind of “smokey” taste in your mouth!!! Im not sure if its all the dried blood or that we regain some sort of sensation that creates that, but its kinda icky! 5 1/2 more weeks of this splint…. i can taste some sourdough bread with butter already!!!
btw, my surgeon was pretty adamant about me not using the medicated nasal spray (saline is fine) for more than three days. I woke up in a panic, because I couldnt breathe last night. I decided that if I come out of this a little dependent on nasal spray, meh…. could be worse! I think I need some kind of sanity thru all of this, and if breathing thru my nose does it- it shall be! Always do what your doctor recommends, but sometimes a little nudge can mean the difference between comfy and miserable. 🙂
April 20, 2012 at 11:19 am
Hi! Im almost at the 48 hour mark! So, far the most annoying part is the fact that i drool an insane amount and that i can not blow my nose. I have a lot going on in my nose and the Saline isnt doing much. There doesnt seem to be much pain- just majorly uncomfortable. Oh, and the fact that my bottom lip looks like an elephant! I thought I had myself set up pretty well, but this turned out to be something you just kinda have to roll with the punches on. ha ha ha! I am already getting twinges of feeling on my bottom lip and my nose is going in and out of feeling as well. I will check in with anything informative I stumble across. Speedy Healing to you all!
April 15, 2012 at 11:09 am
Hi Donna,
You’ll be glad you went through with the surgery. I promise! =)
It can seem daunting at first, but you’ll quickly realize that the recovery is actually quite short for such an invasive operation, and when you start smiling afterwards (and are able to bite through a sandwich properly), you’ll be happy with the results.
April 14, 2012 at 2:00 pm
i am so glad found this site i av been looking on youtube for a few weeks ,and i am so scared to have my surgery done but then i really want it done dont no want to do
April 12, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Brenda, I’m not sure how long the hospital will hold you. My splint was held in by removable wires, so I didn’t have to go back in for surgery to have it taken out. I’ve never actually heard of anyone going back for a second operation to have the splint removed, but I trust your surgeon knows what they’re doing.
Let me know how you’re doing during those first few days following the removal of that awful piece of oral hardware. =)
April 12, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Hi Lee,
It sounds like you have a lot of hardware holding your jaw together!
As for numbness, I wouldn’t worry about it until the 3-month mark. I experienced the return of feeling up until around that point. As always, some people receive their feeling back sooner than others.
If, after 3 months, your feeling is still absent, I’d certainly ask your surgeon for an honest evaluation at that point. At the very least, all of the feel should return to your upper lip because it is not connected to the primary nerve that has to be moved as a result of the surgery.
I wish you all the best and let me know the outcome in another month or so. I’m interested to see if your feeling finds its way back or not.
April 12, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Thanks for the advice. I found out today that my surgery is changed to monday ugh it upset me i want to get this thing over with. Anyway has anybody ever had these screws that are on the gums near the teeth and brackets, these screws are really hurting the inside of my cheeks and it just bugs when i try to laugh. Also does anybody know if the hospital will have me stay at least one day after the surgery, they are only going to remove the splint on the upper teeth and the screws on my gums. Please help!
April 12, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Really informative blog: Thank you.
I had upper and lower jaw surgery and ended up with 12 titanium plates, and 52 screws.
The surgery seemed to go well but I’m 7 weeks out of surgery and getting really nervous about the fact that I still have a lot of numbness in and around my lips. It affects the way I speak and I’m worried that this numbness is out of the norm. I still have quite a bit of swelling on the sides of my nose too.
Do you think these issues are normal at 7 weeks out? or should I be concerned?
Thank you again for you insights.
April 12, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Tori, those are all excellent tips! Keeping yourself elevated while you sleep and eating ground flax seeds would have been an incredible help. Thanks for sharing your insight.
April 12, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Bree, it sounds like you’re better prepared than I could have ever hoped to be! Good luck next week!
April 12, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Brenda, if you’re having your splint removed soon, you’ll likely be eating regular meals again within the month.
Once the splint is gone, you should be able to go back to school. You’ll certainly need to eat slowly and be protective of your jaw for another few weeks, but you can begin readjusting to the regular swing of things again.
Just take it easy and enjoy each day!
April 12, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Hi Carrie,
I’ve never heard of anyone reacting to the antibiotics by spawning acne.
I suggest you follow the doctor’s orders in this situation. It doesn’t sound like anything too serious, but it would be nice if your doctor could give your daughter a prescription to alleviate that type of rash.
Good luck!
April 12, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Hey everyone!
I am 11 days post op for double jaw surgery. I though I would add a couple tips I did not see on here.
1. My orthodontist and surgeon both remarked on how fast my swelling went down. I told them what I had been doing and they thought that one thing was the reason why. You know how when you are in the hospital they have your bed almost sitting up? When I got home we shoved a bunch of pillows and blankets under the top of my mattress and then put a board at the bottom between the mattress and the bedframe so that I was elevated when I slept. To keep from sliding down we surrounded me with pillows. If there is any way to sleep at about a 30 degree angle, your swelling will decrease very quickly. I have almost none now.
2. Fiber is hard to get in a liquid diet. As many have said, prune juice is great. But, ground flax seed also works. You usually can find it in the organic section at most grocery stores and if you just blend it up with a smoothie it is a great source of fiber.
3. As soon as you can, establish a mouth cleaning regiment. Anytime after I eat I use an irrigating syringe (the ones with the curved point) to remove any excess food. Then I brush reallly, really well. At first I was very timid about brushing because of the stitches but my surgeon told me that they are in there very well and to brush as I normally would, just with the kids sized toothbrush. After brushing, I use a solution of 2 parts mouthwash to one part hydrogen peroxide and rinse out my mouth the best I can. I can’t really swish it around yet, but if you just hold it in your mouth and move your head around it is good enough. After that, you should have very fresh breath and an extra clean mouth.
Sorry for the long post, but these things really helped me and I’m sure they would others too!