Day 7 and Before and After Xray

I slept the whole night with my teeth closed!!!  So happy.  Lips are still wide open but my mouth isn't hanging like it was.  I have always been a mouth breather, especially when I was asleep.  It got worse when I started this process because my braces moved my teeth into different places and I would wake up with a dry mouth and dry front teeth because I had my mouth open all night.  It was such a gross feeling.  After I had my surgery my mouth just hung open and it hurt to try to close it.  My cheeks, tougue, and lips were too swollen to even try.  Well, last night I was laying in bed and I felt like things were feeling not as swollen.  I tried to close my mouth and it worked.  I have a splint in my mouth that is attached to my upper teeth but has perfect molds of my lower teeth on the bottom.  Dr used it to decide how to reattach my jaws during surgery.  He lined up my upper and lower jaw and bond them together before he reattached my jaws to my face.  It doubles as a cast for my upper jaw while the bone heals.  I was able to pop my lower teeth into the splint and it felt normal.  I couldn't believe it.  It wasn't even that much effort and it hurt less to have my teeth in the splint than it did to have my jaw hanging open in my mouth breathing way.  I went to sleep with my teeth in place and woke up the same way.  I was able to breathe through my nose the whole time.  Best part was I finally woke up without a dry mouth.  Very cool.  Even got pics of my new bite that I will post later.  I'm still crazy swollen but you can see my teeth lining up. One other sucky part to the surgery is you have an almost constant runny nose.  When the Dr does the surgery he jacks with your sinuses.  It makes you have the constant runny nose which is not fun.  Then he tells you that you can't blow your nose for at least 2 weeks.  Ugh.  The Kleenex Cooling Tissues are one of my favorite things right now.  Still over my steady drooling problem and I hope it gets less soon.

Here is a good look at my fun splint.  It is a super thick, clear plastic retainer like thing that is attached to my upper jaw with extra wires wrapped all crazy around my brackets.  It barely goes over the bottom of my upper teeth and my lower teeth fit perfect in the bottom of it.  It is only the shape of the arch of my teeth.  I thought it would cover the roof of my mouth but it doesn't.  It feels weird having it in my mouth.  But the point of this pic is to show you that I can fit my teeth in!!!  The inside of my mouth was too swollen before and I guess it went down enough that it doesn't hurt to do this.  It actually feels normal.  Woo hoo! You can also see one of the two awesome rubberbands that have to stay in my mouth at all times for the next week.  They help take some of the pressure of holding my jaw up.   My face is shiny because it is covered in Carmex.  I love this stuff.  It helps soooo much with the after effects of my lips being stretched to the max for the 4 or 5 hours of my surgery.  Man that does a number on the sides of your mouth.  My mouth was stretched to the max the whole surgery.  Look how huge my lips are still!  Wow!  I can feel my upper lip but my lower lip and chin still feel mostly numb and gross when I touch them.  I'm just glad I can feel me touching them.

My new bite

It will look better when the swelling is down but it looks so good.

That is a Breathe Rite strip on my nose.  It seemed to help.

Before Xray

After Xray

By the way, I was a little dizzy on my Vicadin when they asked me to stand still so they could take this Xray.  I think that is why it is a little fuzzy.

Today I was trying to think of a way to describe how it feels having my face like this.  I think I came up with a good description.  To me it feels like my skin is stretched over my skull tight and stapled down.  I can talk but most people can't understand me.  I don't really move my mouth when I talk so I sound all muffled.  Hang your mouth open, don't move your tongue, don't swallow and talk.  Now you know how I sound.  :)  FYI, inspite of the fun description I'm still so glad I did this and don't regret it.  I'm not complaining, just documenting for my memory of all that I went through and so other jaw surgery patients that find this blog will know as much info as they can to help them when they are in my shoes.  Today I woke up feeling like a new person.  Swelling has gone down a little.  I still have the drooling, numbness and a bit of a sore throat but I feel sooooo much better.  The first 5 days were definately the worst and I feel so happy to be past those days.  Also happy to say that I'm down 16lbs.  Don't feel like I'm starving at all.  I "eat" so my tummy doesn't hurt or actualy when it hurts I eat.  I have been living on soup, juice and gatorade.  Trying the different protein drinks to find which ones I like.  I'm going to try to take a video of me talking so you can see what that looks like.  :)