1 year, 6 Months - Oh yeah, I had surgery

It has been a while so I thought I would report on all things "Jaw Surgery"! Life is pretty much back to normal, until someone asks how my face is feeling... then I remember and promptly focus on how my face DOES still feel weird.

Positives:

I can eat all of the things! I have had to learn how to properly eat an apple; I can no longer stab apples with my upper teeth and then use my tongue to pry the apple off said teeth, I have to bite at it with all the teeth...i think I now know why apple bobbing is difficult. I am not sure how to get corn off a cob yet but I bet come summer Ill be a pro.

Be it cheese or carrot, there is no match for my iron bite!

Less Positive:

Once I start thinking about it, all I can focus on is that pesky lower lip and some of my teeth that refuse to play nice. I try to rate the return sensation every time I go in for a cleaning and I have noticed that the gums are super alert. They may send signals to different parts of my face that have nothing to do with the cleaning, but they are super alert...painfully in some cases.

The scarf-effect                                  

There is also a very interesting thing that happens when I wear a scarf (I have been super into crochet lately, making huge scarves), no matter how soft the fabric it feels like I am wearing steel wool. The very act of wrapping my face up creates a hyper response from my chin. So what is going on with my face?

I no longer have any "dead spots",  I can feel something or a degree of something on every section of my chin. The chin is a dull tickle but the lip and just below are still very hyperactive, giving off the feeling of hot or cold and constantly tingling. Really it is like I fell asleep with a clothes pin on my lip and now it has to regain feeling. This feeling travels down on the inside of my lower lip to where it meets the gums. If I get a small bit of food stuck in this space it feels like red hot pokers all over my mouth until I can get it out of there. I now have a built in spinach detector! I was told by my surgical team that nerves are super slow and it could be continuing to heal at the 2 year mark.

Recently, I had my first real sinus related cold since surgery. Oh Boy... I have a very strange feeling when the sinuses are inflamed, the right side of my face feels like it is a balloon. Also a weird vibration that, when blowing my nose, feels like my metal plate and tooth below are rattling. Not actually what is happening but the sensation is really confounding...

 Other than that, I have had some touch-ups to my bite. A little "sanding" of some teeth that were touching strangely. I think the position is finally correct and I haven't had any weird wobble to my bite. I return for an orthodontic check up in March to make sure all the teeth are still stable and not trying to push themselves into odd configurations. I still have been very good about wearing my essex retainers every night and have not had any feeling of shifting. So, with that, onward and upward...and hopefully gaining more nerves.