It has been one month and then some since my surgery. Time has really flown by. This is my third week back to work already (I took off 4 weeks total–which started a few days prior to surgery).
Healing Update: Pain has been minimal. I would say I have really little to no pain in the “joint” area. My biggest discomfort at this point is tightness in the masseter muscles and sore/sensitive teeth. My scars under my chin are itchy sometimes, but also healing well. My right side one is already almost invisible; my left side one is still quite visible and pink. All in all, nothing is as bad as I had expected it would’ve been.
Function Update: I am already at about a 30 mm opening on a regular basis. This was the “ultimate” goal of surgery, so I’m thrilled. I’m also very confident I will be able to open wider than this with regular stretching and ongoing healing. MY new ultimate goal would be between 35-40 mm. I’m not sure what Dr. Shah would say about that though. I have a little more lateral movements as well. I had my lateral pterygoid muscles amputated during surgery (these muscles help control movements side to side–as well as other stuff), so it was expected that I would have limitations with this movement. I have more movement than I expected though. This is a really minor and meaningless victory overall because there’s not much benefit to this movement. But still, a victory is a victory.
Eating Update: Still on a “no-chew” diet. I am a rule follower. I am meant to be on this for 8 weeks after surgery so I have have a few weeks to go yet. I have ventured beyond pure liquids now into more soft, mashable foods such as really soft veggies or scrambled eggs. Wild. Tonight I am eating grits. Surprisingly I’m not going crazy and the ease of grabbing an Ensure in the morning is actually quite nice.
Treatment Update: This is probably the most exciting update. I no longer have to band my jaws together. When I was doing this, I was having such terrible pain and muscle spasms. When I talked it over with the surgeon, he agreed that it wasn’t necessary, so no bands!! Whoop! Whoop! I do find myself still clenching terribly at night. I’ve tried making myself a pseudo deprogrammer and have a QuickSplint on order, so we’ll see if that helps in the meantime until I can get through the braces for good and get a splint/nightguard made. Speaking of braces, I have my next orthodontist appointment with Dr. Schwab in a couple weeks. Hopefully we can move things along so I can get out of these death metal lip traps.