Saturday 6 April 2013

Day 9: Laughter and Stitches


Pain in Jaw: 2/10
Pain in Stitches: 8/10

So the past 24 hours haven't been the best 24 hours for me. It all started when I choked on a smoothie. I'm really flemmy in the throat lately because I can't cough it up, and I think the smoothie was just too thick, I choked, and when you're banded together and can't open your mouth, it's a scary experience.

Moving onto the night, I had 0 hours of sleep, I've got a constant numb bum, and i'm just getting so uncomfortable sleeping on a recliner chair. I can't tell you the frustration of your pillows falling down constantly, and just sleeping upright in general. I was debating today whether I missed my bed more, or food. Anyway, around 5am this morning, in some bizzare way i'd also convinced myself that I could open my jaw ALOT more than I could the day before, so I worried for the rest of the morning about how I probably wouldn't be able to get hold of my surgeon over the weekend to tell him that the bands aren't resisting very good, when I finally awoke properly - it's exactly the same as it has been since surgery - urgh, worry over nothing!

When i'd just had my surgery I couldn't feel my stitches, infact I didn't even know they were there. Since the feeling is slowly coming back on the inside of my mouth, so is the pain around the stitches on the inside of my upper lip. It only hurts when I smile or laugh (I assume because it's stretching the stitch doing this), but when it hurts, it HURTS. I even said today that it hurt more than jaw surgery itself. I was worried it had become infected, It doesn't look it but i'm certainly going to keep my eye on it...Anyway, todayas I was eating my lunch with mum and James (or drinking it should I say) somebody cracked a joke and James ended up squirting my mum with one of my syringes, to cut a story short, it ended up with lots of laughter, and then lots of tears. I was in so much pain it was unreal.

On a lighter note, the tears caused me to become congested in the nose, although this is a bad thing in itself, the clot of blood/mucus/tissue/other gooey products that has been stuck in my nasal passage since surgery became loose, worked it's way down and came out. It was about the side of a marble, and it was disgusting! But atleast I can fully breathe, and that's lovely!

I also ventured out of the house today properly since surgery and it was lovely; I went to ASDA. Not a massive thing, but another milestone and a step in the right direction. Although I was pretty paranoid with everyone looking at me, I just wanted to wear a sign saying 'I've had jaw surgery, I don't usually look like this!' But James kindly reminded me that I won't look like this forever. :)

Roll on no more swelling! It's definitely come down alot quicker than I expected, just waiting on final bits!


4 comments:

  1. Oh goodness this is exactly what I've had issues with. I've also being saying that it's more painful that jaw surgery - people think I'm exaggerating but it is just that painful. It feels as if I'm going to rip the stitches out! I'm debating whether of not to meet up with members of my family because I'm so scared about laughing! Under my upper lip is so dry as well, I'm wondering if that makes it worse? Please tell me this improves soon! I'm only day 7 post op :(

    Great blog by the way :)

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    1. Bless you! Unfortunately nothing you can do will ease the pain other than trying to prevent from laughing! You're not exaggerating at all, painful isn't the word! Apparently though under your upper lip is where you will experience most pain as they do a 'special form of stitch' which gives your lip more length or something!

      It does get better, by next week they won't bother you at all! I can pull my gums about the place now and even though the stitches are there, they're not bothering me! As for dryness under your top lip, try and put as much Vaseline as you can underneath without actually going near the stitches, and try to swill some fluids around up there with a syringe or just splashing to keep it moist!

      Things will get better, the hardest week is done! :)

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  2. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, it certainly helped me a lot now that I'm going through the same

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  3. Can't relate more. I had an upper jaw augmentation surgery along with a rhinoplasty last week. The sutures inside my mouth hurt more than my nose. I cant smile,I can't close my mouth. Needless to say I had little or no to eat all this week. The hunger is driving me crazy. The doctor says it will take another 3-5 days for the sutures to come off. Terribly waiting for that day. I can't bear it anymore!
    How long did the sutures take to dissolve in your case?

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