Corrective Jaw Surgery - Before and After

I know how much people like to fast-forward to the ending, because I was searching for before and after photos before my surgery too!

What kind of results will I get?
Will there be a big difference?
Are my family and friends going to recognize me?
Will I look better or worse?
Is my face going to look “fake” a la Joan Rivers?

These are all questions that were racing through my mind, and they are questions that I still get on a regular basis from future jaw surgery patients.

I just set up a brand new section on the official Jaw Surgery Forums to try and further help people find and see real results from real people.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if you could have clicked a few buttons and seen an entire list of orthognathic surgery patients’ before and after photos, PLUS the ability to leave a comment and/or ask a question right underneath?

So, I need your help, and I’m willing to bribe you to get it.

To everyone who has already gone through the overbite and/or underbite surgery or is in the pre-surgery process, please follow the simple instructions in the video below to post your before and/or after pictures on the forums.

The contest will run from August 1st through August 31st, at which point I will randomly select a winner from the forums to receive a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.

You can use this massive windfall to stock up on jaw surgery supplies or anything else that Amazon.com has to offer.

Of course the thought of genuinely helping out a fellow jaw surgerista should provide at least some extra value too…

Enter yourself in less than 5 minutes:

1. Watch the video below

2. Follow the instructions

3. Cross your fingers until August 31st

P.S. – The forums are located here, and if you have any trouble signing up or logging in, just leave a comment below to let me know, and I’ll be glad to help:

http://www.jawsurgeryblog.com/forums/

UPDATE: The contest is now closed, and the winner is here, but we can never have enough before and after photos, so please keep them coming!

If you have a question about jaw surgery, the best place to ask it is here on the FAQ page.

Otherwise, you can fill out the form below, but it may take longer to get a response:

Hello fellow Jaw Surgeristas!

I just updated the FAQ page, including the juicy “How much does it cost?” question. Click here to check it out.

Also, there’s more information than you’d ever want to know about me, along with before and after pictures from the surgery, here: About Me

Don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS Feed to be updated automatically on the latest jaw surgery news and videos.

Did you have upper jaw surgery or lower jaw surgery?

Why have just one, when you can have both? Oh right, because both leads to much more swelling, recovery, and general discomfort — I’ll take two please!

Yes, I had upper and bottom. They moved my lower jaw back, upper jaw forward, and, if that wasn’t enough, corrected for a diagonal misalignment as well.

All together, they moved things about 12mm. Anyone out there have a bigger distance than that? (that’s what she said…)

How much did the surgery cost?

This is one of the hardest questions to answer, since it depends on so many different factors: severity, location, insurance plan, time required, and on and on…

BUT, this was one of my biggest questions as well, and it seemed like everyone was afraid to even give a ballpark number, so I’m going to tell you what it cost ME.

Remember, I have no idea what your specific needs and/or plans are, so my figures may be COMPLETELY different, and I can only speak from my personal experience for my personal surgery.

You may pay MUCH less or MUCH more, so you get the idea, right? Take these figures with a grain of salt (whatever that means)!

• ~2 years of braces (1 year pre-surgery, 1 year post-surgery) = $5,100 out of pocket
• amount insurance paid for actual surgery = $5,028.79
• my co-pay for the surgery = $300 out of pocket
• various lab fees and co-pay’s during the entire process = ~$200 out of pocket

Total Out of Pocket Cost: ~$5,500-$6,000

As you can see, the braces were the biggest cost, by far, since they weren’t covered by insurance, but I was “lucky” enough to have such a horrendous, mutant bite that insurance deemed my case extreme and covered the surgery.

Mine was considered a medical case, but if yours isn’t quite as severe, it may be considered cosmetic, which would probably leave you with the full cost of the surgery.

It’s also interesting to note that the bill indicates if I had used an out-of-network provider and/or not had insurance, I would have owed an additional $81,879.07! I’m not even sure exactly how that works or what it all means, but I sure am glad I didn’t get hit with THAT bill!

What exactly happened to your jaw? Why did you need the surgery?

Although it may have looked like I planted my skull in the middle of a heavily-trafficked railroad crossing, it was actually a much less dramatic process, where my jaw just gradually grew out of whack as I got older.

Technically, I could have managed for the rest of my life without the surgery, especially since I had never really know what I was missing. When chewing, I only had a few teeth that actually fit together, but it happened so slowly that I just naturally adapted.

If only I had known what a difference it would make when my teeth actually touched each other, I would have been filing for total disability before! It literally feels like I have a blender in my mouth now, and it’s so nice to experience what “normal” people take for granted.

I knew the surgery would make a big different, but I was still really surprised at just how much more functional it made me.

How long did it take to heal? How long does the swelling last?

The answer to this really depends on how you define “heal.” Again, my surgery was relatively complex and “major,” so your times may be a bit less.

I was in the hospital for 2 days and 2 nights following the surgery, just to ensure I was recovering well, getting adequate fluids, and stopping the bleeding. Some less severe cases may even go home the same day.

Once home, I was wired shut for about 5 weeks, and this was the most uncomfortable period, but the healing process was already in full swing.

I’d say it took about 6 months to really feel normal again, in terms of the last bit of swelling and being completely comfortable chomping back into my carnivorous diet, though I was about 75% or so after around 3 months.

Are there any risks associated with jaw surgery?

Of course, there are always risks associated with any surgery, but that doesn’t make them any less serious or worrying. Besides all the more general potential complications like infection problems or bleeding issues, one of the most pressing for me was the idea of a relapse.

There are very few patients who undergo the entire process of jaw surgery, only to have their jaws regress right back to where they were or misaligned in a whole new way.

This, of course, would require doing the entire process over again and can be a result of any number of things, including getting the surgery done too early before your jaw is done growing.

As with any surgery, it’s imperative to follow your doctor’s and surgeon’s guidelines to the letter. I took my post-op care and check-ups very seriously and was fortunate enough to not have any issues or signs of relapse at all, so please do the same!

What about the tingling/numbness?

Right after surgery, I could not feel most of my face at all, which is normal. It was definitely a slobber-fest!

Over the course of the next several weeks, the feeling slowly returned and radiated out from my lips. So, the feeling first starting coming back to my tongue, then my lips, then in a small circle around my lips, then down into my chin and so on.

The last bits of tingling and numbness lingered for several months, but you get used to it after a while, once you get your lips back — that’s the most important and frustrating part at first for eating and k-i-s-s-i-n-g (and things of that nature…)…

Do you look like a completely different person after?

Did you lose weight while you were wired shut?

Would you do it again?

What/how did you eat while you were wired shut?

I love all the questions coming in, so I’ve decided to move them to a much more organized place to make them easier to navigate for everyone. That means the comments here are now closed, so now you can ask your questions in the forums, and I’ll be able to answer them even faster.

The Jaw Surgery Blog is almost ready to go live!

I’ve got all the videos converted, now it’s just a matter of uploading and getting the final tweaks done.

In fact, I’m creating the FAQ (frequently asked questions) page right now, and I need your help.

Ask me absolutely any burning question you have about any part of the jaw surgery process.

Not only will I answer you personally, but I will also include it on the FAQ page, because there are probably a ton of people out there with your exact same question.

Don’t worry, all of the questions will be listed generically and anonymously, and you don’t even have to use your real name in the comments.

To ask a question (or multiple questions), just click here to get your answer.

Hello fellow jaw surgery survivors and potential patients-to-be!

I’ve been meaning to launch this blog for a long time, and I’ve finally gotten it started. I had a pretty major surgery (even by jaw surgery standards) where both my upper and lower jaws were moved about 3 feet each (if you aren’t familiar with sarcasm or exaggeration, I suggest you find a duller jaw surgery blog now…).

I’ve been keeping a video log of the entire process: daily for the initial period right after surgery and weekly/monthly as time went on and changes were less dramatic.

It’s now been a little over a year since the surgery (though it’s been about 3 years since the preparation process began), and I’m now fully healed, braces-free, and have all the feeling back in my face.

I haven’t come across another jaw surgery video log quite as extensive as the one I’m putting together here, and I know I would have loved to see someone else go through this process in so much detail, so I hope that others considering a similar procedure will be able to learn from this blog.

I’m getting all of the videos converted and ready for upload now, so I plan to have the entire blog live and complete by the end of the month (January 2009).

Be sure to subscribe here in the meantime, so you’ll know first about the latest updates.

You can also check out a brief summary and a sneak peak of my “after” pics on my bio page.

Of course, I’ll be here to answer any questions and respond to any comments you may have, so feel free to get the discussion started in the comment section now, and keep on me to make sure I get things finished as soon as possible!