Day 31

Today is the second day that I woke up feeling like my uvula is kind of swollen, which is weird and annoying. I don't know if it's actually because it was numb and I didn't know, and it's now waking up, but I'm acutely aware of my uvula and I don't like it. At first I thought I might be getting a cold, but I have no other symptoms.

I didn't sleep more than 5 or 6 hours last night because I had a baby shower brunch in the morning and it was stressing me out. I'm not fond of baby showers to begin with, but having to attend one at a restaurant feels worse. I knew I would have to  sit there and feel awkward while everyone else is eating, get that look from the waiter when I say I only want a glass of water, etc. Ugh. I kind of wanted to just not go. But anyways, I woke up on time and got ready, and attended the brunch. It was too bad, but I definitely didn't enjoy myself as much as I would have if I had been able to speak clearly and chew. I ordered a lemonade and sure enough, the waiter was like "So... nothing to eat?" and I just said "no, I can't eat" and he gave me a sideways glance and moved on to the next person. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say, if anything. I know it's none of their business, but I still feel the need to explain myself while not wanting to explain anything. I'd rather just stay away from restaurants until I can actually eat :P

The worst thing is that there was a mirror on the wall right in front of me where some of my friends were sitting, so I kept catching glimpses of my face and getting that "woah that's not my face" feeling whenever I'd see it. I was constantly watching myself, being surprised by how much I looked different in ways I don't notice when I actually stare in the mirror. Since I was moving normally and talking and all that stuff, there are movements I hadn't seen since before the surgery, if that makes sense, and they looked foreign on my face. It was weird. Hopefully my friends didn't notice that I kept looking at myself haha. How vain would that be?!

Although to be honest, I'm still really obsessed with my jawline (when it's not disappearing mysteriously). Here's a comparison before and after surgery:

As you can see, I still have to strain to close my lips together
and my chin is still a bit "weak", but the profile is one
million times better than before!

I ended up hanging out with my friends for a good 4 hours, and when I came home, I was completely exhausted. I still managed to make dinner before I crashed on the couch. We were supposed to attend a little get together with friends to celebrate the New Year, but I decided to skip it. I spent the evening playing games in my PJ's and relaxing, which was nice. I'm sad that I didn't get to hang out with friends and ring in the new year, but I probably would have been too cranky to enjoy it anyway.

I did remove my bands when I came home though! My muscles were sore for the first hour or so, and I didn't know where to put my bottom jaw. If I relaxed it, my mouth just hang completely open, but if I tried to keep it sort of closed but not clenching, the muscles were strained a bit. They must be atrophied from not moving at all for a month. Eventually it got a bit better though and I forgot that I wasn't wearing bands.

Tomorrow, I'll try chewing for the first time. Wish me luck!

Day 30

Today is my ONE MONTH surgery anniversary! Woo-hoo!

Progress has been slowing down, mostly because all the most pressing problems have been fixed anyway. I thought I would give you an update on most of the symptoms that I had problems with at the beginning, to give you a quick update on where I stand after one month.

Pain
Pretty much no pain, expect when I sleep on one side for too long and my joint starts cramping up. It's noticeably getting better though, and changing position fixed the problem. I sometimes have a few teeth pain like they are waking up, or because of clenching/band positioning, but nothing that requires painkillers.

Swelling
Progress is very slow on that front, but there isn't that much left. I'm still definitely swollen on the cheeks, especially towards the top, and on either sides of my nose.

Swelling.

Numbness
I think it has slowly started coming back to life. It's still definitely numb in the same areas (shown below), but I'm starting to get weird feelings like vibrations, buzzing, and yesterday, it felt like there was a hair on my chin and it was the most annoying thing ever. I kept trying to remove it but there was nothing. At least it's a good sign!

Numbness

Talking
I have no problem talking, but I have an annoying lisp with my bands on. It gets much better when I remove the bands though, so I'm not too worried. The hardest thing is trying to talk when I'm smiling because someone said something funny. I can't bring my lips around all that hardware in my mouth while smiling, so forming "m" and "p" is impossible. People seem to understand me, unless English is their second language. I still need to learn to unclench my teeth when I talk. It's a bad habit that I formed form the early days of surgery.

Diet
I'm pretty much used to the liquid diet and got a routine down, but I'm getting more and more cravings for my favorite foods. I'm excited to start chewing, but also a little nervous because I know it won't be a piece of cake (hah!). I'm expecting lots of frustration and probably some joint pain and other annoyances, but it's part of recovery after all.

Fatigue
I'm still quite tired to be honest, but I'm still not always sleeping a good 8 hours a night. Sometimes I get only 6 hours because I don't go to bed early enough and have to get up in the morning. I now take a 60 to 90 minutes nap every day, but I still feel tired during the day. As I've mentioned in another post, there might be other reasons than the surgery or the failure of the surgery (since I got the surgery to fix sleep apnea and chronic fatigue). I'm still going to wait before I investigate. My surgeon said it could take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to start feeling a difference, and I have read other bloggers say they didn't recover their energy until a few months later, so still crossing fingers. Plus, I'm in my period right now, and it has always been a big struggle energy-wise during that time of the month, so right now it's hard for me to evaluate.

I've been "working" again the past week, but it was only one client and they ended up not having much projects to send my way, so I probably worked less than 6 hours during the week. I'm pretty happy about it though, it gave me an extra week to relax before going back full-time. I hope next week won't be too packed so I can ease myself back into it.

So that's where I stand for now! As you can tell, things are slowing down and there isn't much to talk about anymore, so I may start posting every week instead of every day. I'll keep you updated on my chewing adventures, but I don't think a daily post will be necessary for that.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section!

Day 29

Today, the gums inside my mouth bled a lot less when I used the rubber tip, so that's some good progress! Still hopeful that I can heal the slight recession on some of the teeth. I checked them again with the little dentist mirror and it doesn't look as horrible as I initial thought. I think I just freaked out about it and it made everything seem much worst than it is. I don't even feel pain when I swish cold water in there, so it can't be THAT bad!

I still want to make sure it doesn't get worse though, but there is no longer a lot of pressure on my bottom teeth from my upper teeth, which I feel was the main cause of the gum recession. I've learned to relax my jaw better, too.

Last night, I started feeling like the numb part of my bottom lip was vibrating and almost burning a little. Suddenly, it felt less stiff! I still can't feel when I touch it, but it definitely feels less "dead" than it used to. More like half dead. I can also feel pressure all around the numb area. I asked my husband to put a pen on different area, and when he did it super lightly, I couldn't really feel it, but if he pressed just a little bit, I could tell where it was semi accurately.

Not much else to report on day 29; just waiting on the weekend when I'll be able to remove my bands during the day and try to chew! I might not do it on Saturday itself because I've got a baby shower brunch in the afternoon and then we're going to celebrate the New Year with some friends that night. I'm not sure I'm ready to leave my jaw unbanded in public for a day. What if it starts hurting, or what if I accidentally hit myself in the face, like I clumsily do constantly? I would feel safer doing it when I'm at home, since I don't know what to expect. I know this is very paranoid of me :P

I did want to talk about something a little unpleasant and maybe TMI, but let's discuss poop on a liquid diet. Now here's the thing: I've been eating liquid food very rich in protein and calories, which means there is very little fiber in my meals. I realized that I basically eat 1 banana a day and that's pretty much it in terms of fruits and veggies. Sure, there might be a bit of veggies and grains in my dinner, depending on what I made, but it's not enough. For about 4-5 days last week, my poops were quite hard and dense, and it made me constipated.

I almost bought a stool softener, but then I didn't want to add another pill I'd have to squeeze through my teeth, so I thought of trying Metamucil. But that stuff is full of useless added sugar or fake sugar, and I feel like I'm eating enough added sugar with Ensure, so I looked for a non-flavored version, and discovered Benefiber.

Again, not a paid advertisement, I promise!

Man, that stuff is gold. You can also buy a generic version at your pharmacy, too! But basically, you just add 2 tablespoons of this powdered fiber supplement to your meal 3 times a day, and that's it. It tastes like nothing and dissolves pretty well (except in Ensure... I think it's too slimy). I just dump it in my smoothie when I add the cocoa powder and I don't even know it's there.

I've been doing it for the past 3 days and I'm happy to report that my poop is back to normal! I definitely recommend using something like Benefiber. You could of course also make more smoothies with fruits and veggies, but honestly, I'm still always looking for a way to maximize the calories to volume content of my food, and I always feel like a fruit smoothie isn't high in calorie enough. I think I've mentioned this before, but when I'm hungry, I feel like it's important for me to eat as much calories as I can before it goes away, so a simple fruit smoothie seems like a waste. Of course, your experience may vary, and maybe you'll be constantly hungry and it won't be a problem! But if you run into a similar situation, get yourself a fiber supplement.

Day 28

I've been able to sleep pain-free for a few days now, which is really nice! It also means I can take naps during the day, which I've been taking advantage of. I always wake up with a sort of blocked ear, whichever ear I slept on, but it goes away within 10 minutes. I'm assuming it's just pressure on the jaw that puts pressure on the ear and is normal. I still feel tired, but then again, I'm also PMSing and I usually feel very fatigued during that time.

In the morning, I brushed the inside of my mouth for the second time, and this time I used a rubber tip to massage around each tooth as best as I could. There was quite a bit of bleeding, which seems to indicate that the gums are pretty irritated by the gunk that accumulated for almost a month. I'll be using the rubber tip every morning for a while. Hopefully it'll help! Using it on the front teeth is hard though. My mouth doesn't open wide enough for me to maneuver the tool easily.

I can easily fit a finger between my teeth, but not quite two.

Swelling-wise, it's still about the same. It's kind of weird because some days, I like my face, and some days I really don't. I wonder if the swelling actually fluctuates and affects how much I love/hate my face. Maybe there is more swelling now that I'm moving my jaw more? It's not super noticeable, but maybe it's enough to change my opinion about it. For example, my jawline seem to disappear sometimes, and I still can't figure out if it's just about angles or changes in swelling. Ugh. I know I should wait 4-6 months to see the final results, but it's hard to deal with when you see your face every day! Being patient is not easy :P I've seen other bloggers struggle with this, and I totally understand it. I just try to squash the negative thoughts about my appearance and move on. I know for a fact there is still swelling on my cheeks and under my eyes, so I'm hanging on to that for hope. Until it's completely gone, I can't complain about how I look!

After dinner, I had a craving for something sweet, and I had a pudding leftover from pre-surgery. I looked at it, look at a spoon, and decided to try to remove my bands and see if I could fit a spoon in there. It worked! I could only fit the tip of the spoon, and the pudding on top would get scraped by my upper front teeth, but I still managed to get most of it inside my mouth. It was awesome. I still held my chin with my hand just to make sure I wouldn't accidentally jerk it open too wide. I'm also kind of scared that my joints will cramp up and lock my mouth open, but so far it hasn't happened. I keep trying to close my mouth between brushing/spoonfuls just in case.

Now that I'm on the cusp of starting a soft diet, I'm realizing that the liquid diet hasn't been as challenging as I thought, at least not in the way I thought it would be. It was hard at the very beginning when I didn't feel like eating anything at all and had to force feed myself, and it's still hard to reach a good amount of calories every day, but I haven't been TOO frustrated at not being able to eat anything I want. Of course, I get cravings and stuff, but once I got into a routine, it felt easier. I knew what I was going to eat every day, and I just ate it without questioning too much. Four weeks passed quickly like that! Here's what my "feeding" schedule looked like (I sound like a cattle or something):

Breakfast: Ensure or peanut butter banana smoothie (depending on how hungry/in a hurry I am)
Snack: Ensure or peanut butter banana smoothie (whichever I didn't eat in the morning)
Dinner: Blend whatever I cooked/leftovers (usually soup, potstickers, stews, etc.)
Snack: Yogurt smoothie or protein chocolate milk bought at the grocery store

To be fair, I've never had a problem eating the same thing for 3 days and always make sure that every dinner I make will last us 2-3 days just so that I don't have to cook every day, so it might have worked in my favor.

However, I am excited at the idea of eating stuff I'm craving. I've had interesting cravings, like a bag of Combos pretzels, which I NEVER eat or even think about. I don't know why; I just thought about it one day and I've been wanting some ever since. And then of course, when we went to Fry's a few days ago, I walked by the check out lane full of snacks and saw them.

Even though I found the liquid diet easier than expected, this
makes it a little harder at times...

In case you've never seen these before.
Great, now I'm drooling.

I should make a list of things I'll eat when I can chew normally, but then again, I'm worried about gaining a lot of weight. I have a feeling that my metabolism is all screwed. I don't understand how I could have reached my normal weight so fast and still hold it by eating only 1500 calories of liquid food only. I know I shouldn't worry about this right now, but I kind of am. I'm not sure how to avoid gaining 20 pounds once I start eating normally, and it kind of sucks that I'll have to watch my calorie intake once I can chew again, instead of finally enjoying all the stuff I've been missing. Of course, this could be tied to the thyroid levels problem, but I haven't asked my doctor for a test just yet. I want to give myself time to readjust, in case it fixes itself.

I'm going to end this post on a list of the cravings I've had so far. If you're banded shut right now, let me know what you're craving in the comments. Maybe we can all dream of eating a feast of the food we're missing while we dream tonight :)

• Combos pretzels
• All-dressed chips
• Italian sub
• Veggie pizza
• Orange chicken & chow mein
• See's Candy scotch kisses (although I can't find a link to them on their website and now I'm terrified that they don't carry them anymore... NOOO)
• Onion rings
• Popcorn (although I'll have to wait another 6 months when I'm out of braces)

Day 27

Guys, I've been cleared to remove my bands!!!

I can only remove them to brush my teeth and "put food in my mouth", as my surgeon cryptically said, but not chew yet. He said I can start chewing very soft food (cooked eggs, pasta cut up in small pieces, etc.) this weekend, and after this weekend, I get to wear the bands ONLY at night!

Things are happening so fast all of a sudden!

I wanted to get home and brush my teeth right away, but to be honest, I was a little nervous about having my bottom jaw just hang out, so I kept postponing it until the evening. When I was ready to do my nightly routine, as the very last step, I took out my elastics. My jaw can open pretty wide, at least wider than I thought it would! It feels very crampy when I open as wide as it will go, like I get some light pain all over, even in my throat, which is weird. It must be some muscle tightness.

First smile without elastics!

That's how much I can open!

I managed to fit a baby toothbrush in there and brush. It was amazing. My teeth feel so smooth now. I was also able to use the waterpik in there, which made me feel better. The only worry is that I seem to have gum recession on a few teeth on the bottom, especially between two of my front ones. I already had kind of a little recession "notch" before the surgery, but now it seems deeper and I can feel roughness when I touch it with my tongue. I'm a little concerned about this. I wonder if gum can grow back and heal if it's not caused by periodontal disease? I have a feeling this was caused by my bottom front teeth pressing so hard against my top teeth, and also not brushing for a month. There's not much I can do right now. I thought of calling my dentist or going to a periodontist I've seen once, but I can barely open my mouth and I'm not really ready to have anyone put their fingers in my mouth quite yet. I'll keep an eye on it for now and try to heal it as much as possible, then I'll ask the orthodontist.

Kind of blurry but that's the best I could do.
You can see it's a little darker at the base of my two
front teeth. It feels rough to the touch.

Speaking of orthodontist, my surgeon said to take an appointment with him in two weeks. I'm excited to see their reaction to my "new" face, although now I'm not sure anymore if much changed? I feel like it did, but maybe only people who know me very well and see me every day can see it?

My surgeon also checked that sore spot on my bottom jaw and is pretty convinced it's a muscle band that's knotted. I agree with him. He checked inside my mouth towards that area and everything is healed up perfectly, there's no redness, no swelling, nothing. I'll just keep applying heat and massaging every once in a while. Maybe when once I stop wearing bands it'll stretch out the muscle and fix it.

On another note, I'm having to use wax more often because I can feel the back of my braces digging into my cheeks. I don't know if they just started irritating my cheeks or if it's just because it used to be number and now woke up? Can't wait to get those surgical hooks out. Hopefully it'll help!

So I got a bunch of good news today, now all I have to do is wait for the weekend to try to start chewing! I'm so nervous about this. I hope it'll go well! I've been opening and closing my mouth a few times today in preparation. Maybe I can get a head start and get my muscles warmed up for the big day :)

Day 26

I slept pretty well last night; it seems like the joint pain and jaw jerks are a thing of the past. I still get a little "crampy" in the jaw joints if I put too much pressure on one of them when I sleep on my side, but nothing like the first few weeks. I just adjust my position and it goes away.

I just noticed that my bruises are finally gone, too! Yes! It took so much longer to disappear than I thought it would.

Today, I went to Target to return something, and used this opportunity to stock up on food and check out the Christmas items sale. Everything was 50%, so I bought a bunch of cute gift bags that I can use next year. Since I know that the surgeon will clear me to eat soft food soon, I also bought a bunch of Ritz crackers and my favorite oatmeal.

They're a limited edition contest thing, à la Lays Do Us a Flavor. They came out with three new interested flavors in one box and you're supposed to vote for your favorite. They've got Apple Cheddar Rosemary, which is kind of weird to be honest, but not in a bad way? Sometimes I love it, sometimes I'm kind of put off by it; it changes every bite haha. But the other two flavors are awesome: Lemon Ricotta Pancake and Vanilla Chai. The first one has a nice lemony flavor, but not too overpowering, and the vanilla chai is exactly what it sounds like. I'm a big fan of the vanilla chai lattes at Starbucks and the oatmeal tastes the same! They were 40% off at Target, so I bought 4 boxes, and I already had 3 boxes at home. I know, it sounds like a lot, but I figured when I'm learning how to chew, these will be my go-to. Plus, I usually eat oatmeal in the morning so finishing the boxes won't be a problem. I like to mix in half a packet of non-flavored instant oatmeal with them though because those packets seem really small to me, and also it cuts down on the sweetness a bit. I like my oatmeal lightly sweet :P

Can't wait to "chew" on this!

Target was pretty busy and very messy, understandably. Especially the discounted Christmas section. I was expecting long lines at the return counter but I didn't even have to wait. There were longer lines at the cashiers though. I tried to take a picture to show how busy it was, but it doesn't do it justice...

The lines were snaking towards the back, but it's
hard to tell from the picture.

When I came back home, I wasn't as exhausted as I usually am after going out since the surgery! Victory!

Tomorrow is my appointment with the surgeon. He may or may not remove my bands. I think he wants to see me mostly because of the pain I have on the lower right side of my jaw, which hasn't gotten better even after massaging and applying heat. Although honestly, I can feel the muscle being really tight and slightly swollen compared to the left side, so I really think he's right about the pain being muscle-related. It might take a while to get rid it, especially since I'm probably re-injuring it every time I clench my jaw, and I know I do it often. I'm slowly learning to relax.

I'm excited to see what he's going to say about removing the bands though!

Day 25

Merry Christmas guys!

I can't believe it's already here. The month went by incredibly fast; too fast! Although I did spend half the month not feeling great, so it was hard to get into the spirit of Christmas during that time. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to enjoy the holidays as much as I wanted, but as I said in an earlier post, there's always next year! And next year, I'll be braces-free and this will all be behind me. How amazing is this?

Today I woke up at 7 am and wanted to open the presents, but my husband wanted to sleep in, so I went back to sleep until 10 am. Then we made some coffee and had fun giving each other presents. I got a PS4! I'm excited to finally play the Uncharted series.

Then, I made the same cookies I baked for the leasing office and the neighbors since I had enough ingredients for another batch, and brought those to our friends' place in the afternoon. They invited us and another couple they know who don't have family in this state, so we shared her Christmas day with her immediate family (her mom, her brother and her sister). At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to go, I was afraid I would be intruding on her family time, but knowing there was another couple there made me feel better. Her family was so nice and welcoming, too.

The food though. It smelled AMAZING. I don't even like red meat, but man, it looked delicious. She made rib-eye steaks with roasted brussels sprouts, mashed sweet potatoes, delicious stuffing (I know for a fact that it's good because I've had it for Friendsgiving at her place over the years), fruits and butter biscuits. She also had frosted sugar cookies and assorted chocolates for dessert. I was starving by that point, and my friend offered a few times to blend some soup that she had, but I just felt really self-conscious to eat in front of everyone. If it had been just my friends I think I would have tried it, but I didn't know her family that well, and I didn't know her other two friends who came. I did take some home though!

The view I had during dinner. It looked so good!

Thankfully they could understand me perfectly when I talked. We had fun chatting and hanging out. I asked my friends if they noticed a difference, and they said they couldn't really tell much, which was disappointing. One of them did say that she noticed my smile was less gummy, but that when the elastics and braces would be off it'll be easier to tell, because right now it's distracting. I agree with her; it's hard to tell how my smile will actually look like with all this stuff over my teeth, making it hard to close my lips together. I know my lips won't ever close "naturally" like normal people, but I feel like it'll be a lot easier once I'm brace-free.

We left after about 2-3 hours. I wasn't TOO tired, but I was starving and my cheeks were starting to get tired again from smiling so much.

Overall, I still managed to have a great Christmas time in spite of the surgery, so I'm happy :) I hope you guys had a nice one too!

Day 24

I'm a little late on the next two posts, but it's Christmas-time so I'm sure you'll forgive me (and you're probably busy celebrating with your family yourself anyway!).

So on Christmas Eve day, which is also my day 24, I slept for about 9 hours! However, I did wake up every hour starting at 7 am, so I don't know if it counts as good sleep? My fatigue was about the same as the past week or so. I've been thinking about it for the past few days and I've figured out that there are multiple reasons I might still be very tired:

1. I still don't sleep consistently well or long enough still, and if "sleep debt" really do exist like my sleep specialist believes, I probably will need to sleep well for a few weeks/months before I get all my energy back.
2. I had a thyroid condition when I was young and had to have my thyroid gland removed, so I take replacement hormones. I didn't take them for a few days after the surgery, and then I had to crush them. Since the quantities of actual hormones in the pills are microscopic, I have a feeling I wasn't getting all of it. Some of the powder would inevitably get stuck in the pill crusher and the syringe, so I probably had a much lower dose for a good 2.5 weeks. I just recently started popping them now that I can open my mouth a bit more. Maybe my levels are out of whack and I need to be patient for it to resolve, or go to my GP for a test and an adjustment to my meds.
3. It's possible that I actually need more calories than I'm eating. Maybe all the nutrients I'm getting are being used to heal my bones, so there's not much left to give me energy. I feel like this will be fixed when I can start chewing again and getting enough calories isn't such a struggle.
4. I haven't been able to take my vitamin D and a few years ago I was pretty badly deficient. I think I'll soon be able to open my mouth enough to slip it in. I probably should have tried piercing the little gel cap and see if I can get the liquid into my smoothies, but I was afraid it would taste horrible :P But yeah, a vitamin D deficiency could contribute to my fatigue.

So there are a lot of reasons why I could still be tired, but I feel on the cusp of fixing all of them so I will be patient and try to sleep more often, and take naps more often. The jaw jerks have subsided so I just need to stop being afraid of going to sleep!

Today, I exchanged gifts with my family! Since they live in Canada, we had a webcam session and opened the presents we sent each other by mail a few weeks ago. It was the first time they saw me "live" instead of in photos, and they kept saying how beautiful I looked :D

I got some awesome gifts!

However, they could not understand me haha. It was a bit frustrating. I know part of it was the crappy sound from their laptop, but it was hard to communicate and having to repeat myself constantly was tiring. They also made fun of it at first, and I know they weren't being mean or anything, but it still made me self-conscious. I shouldn't take it personally and I'm not mad at them, but I just ended up not talking much. I smiled a LOT though, it was so much fun to see them and listen to them joke around with each other and enjoy their gifts. After about 2 hours, my jaw muscle were SO tired though, I had to end the call. It wasn't really hurting, just really tight and tired, just like any muscle feel when you do a long set of strength training rep and you just can't do even more more.

One thing I noticed is that my mom kept asking if I really liked a gift I had just unwrapped, and I wonder if it's because my smile looked stiff and she thought I was fake smiling. I'll have to work on loosening it :P Or maybe she's just so used to seeing a LOT of gums when I'm smiling for real, so for her, if she doesn't see as much gum, subconsciously she thinks I'm not that happy.

Tomorrow morning, my husband and I will be opening the presents we're giving each other, and then we're going to a friend's Christmas party. Her mom, sister and brother are in town, but she's inviting some friends as well who don't have a family in the area, which is so nice of her. We're not planning on staying too long though, but I'm glad my husband will have a nice, Christmas dinner instead of just whatever I can cook and blend. I think she's making rib-eye steak, so he's going to be really happy haha.

Day 23

Welp, following yesterday's full eight hour night, I thought I would shake things up and only sleep four hours, all thanks to my excitement/slight anxiousness about seeing my surgeon. There was a chance he was going to remove my rubber bands early, so I was eager to go!

Sadly, he decided to keep them on for another week, but that's OK. That's what I pretty much expected. He said my bones are kind of thin so he doesn't want to take any chance, and I agree with that. I'd rather be rubber banded an extra week than risk having any complications. Funnily enough, my very first band snapping happened this morning while I was brushing my teeth, right before going to see him :P I replaced it like a pro, yay!

The first thing I asked the surgeon was how we could tell if I had done any damage after I hit my chin a couple of days ago, and he said it was all good and not to worry about it. He didn't seemed phased by it at all, so that's good. I did bring up the pain I have when I touch the right, bottom part of my jaw. The pain is still the same as a week ago, kind of this deep, gnawing burning. He almost gave me antibiotics just to be sure, but since I'm allergic to Penicillin and Cipro, he decided to go with the more logical approach first. He seems to think it's muscular, like a knot because I clench my teeth, and I can see how that's possible. I've been holding my jaw back because when I relax my muscles, my bottom front teeth start pushing against my upper front teeth and it's really uncomfortable. So the surgeon told me to apply heat and massage the area. I did that a few times today, but there's still pain. I'm sure it'll take a little while to fix, but I'm still really paranoid/scared that it's actually an infection. But he said if it were, there would be swelling and redness, which there isn't, so... Crossing fingers it'll go away. It just seems to hurt so much for a muscle "knot". Then again, I've never had a knot before, so I don't know if it's normal. It also kind of throbs after I've massaged it.

This is where it hurts.

The surgeon also removed two of the bands on either side, so now I only have two rubber bands total towards the front, and my mouth is a lot more free to open. He told me not to keep my teeth clench when I talk, too. I kind of thought I had to keep my teeth together as much as possible, so maybe this contributed to the "knot" not healing.

I can open my mouth a lot wider than I thought I would at this point. I figured it would take some time and a lot of exercise before I can open wider, but I guess I've been opening it every night to "brush" my teeth sort of with the interdental brushes. I can actually open it wider but the bands are preventing me from doing so.

It's a little crooked, I guess the strength isn't even
on both sides of my jaw :P

Here are the questions I asked today, and the answers:

Q: Will he painful jaw jerks cause permanent damage to my joints?
A: He basically said that for some people, the muscles spasms because of the new position of the jaw, and that it usually goes away after a few weeks or months. He didn't specifically say that it wasn't going to cause long term damage, so I'm not quite sure what to make of his answer. I should have pushed it a little bit, but there were so many things to ask.

Q: My teeth don't seem to touch on either side, is that normal?
A: My bite looks perfectly fine, and the orthodontics will fix the molars not touching. He said not to worry about it.

Q: Do I still have swelling, or is this my new face?
A: There is indeed still a noticeable amount of swelling that will go down very slowly.

Q: My right jaw bone seems to stick out more than my left, is that normal?
A: He thinks it's just swelling and it should balance itself out. Honestly, to me it kind of feels like it's the bone itself and not swelling, but it's not something that people can really see unless you stare straight at my face. I can only notice it when I touch both sides at the same time. Even if it is the bones, I'm OK with that, but I was curious to know. Maybe he's right though, maybe it's just swelling.

Q: My bottom teeth hit my upper teeth at the front when I relax my jaw. Should I relax my jaw anyway, or try to keep the bite more comfortable?
A: He said I should definitely relax my jaw and let my teeth do their thing. He also said the orthodontics would fix that later anyway, but I think he just misunderstood my question. I was just worried about applying so much pressure to my bottom teeth. Thankfully, with the new rubber bands, it's definitely not as bad, so I've been trying to relax my jaw every time I think about it today. Hopefully it helps the knot, too.

He wants to see me again next Tuesday, but I don't think that will be the day he removes my bands. It won't be a full week, so I don't know. I'm thinking he just wants to see if the pain in my right jaw is still there. If he does remove the bands then, I'll be super happy of course, but I'm trying not to expect that.

The rest of the day was a little harder as I was exhausted, but my jaw joints were hurting a lot from the new rubber bands and moving my jaw when talking. I didn't want to try to take a nap, only to have a bunch of jaw jerks and cry of frustration again. I get so flustered when it happens because here I am, just trying to get some sleep so I can heal, but my jaw won't let me. I just want to sleeeeeep. I'm really dreading going to bed because of that...

After dinner, I played a new co-op game called Overcooked with my husband, and it was a lot of fun. We played for way too long, but time just went by so fast that we didn't notice... I can't wait to try it with our friends, too, I can't imagine how crazy it must get with 4 players. Too bad it's only local co-op and not online, otherwise I would have played with my online friends too.

A chaotic strategy game, so much fun!

On that note, it's time for me to start working on brushing my teeth (which is quite the process these days) and hopefully get some peaceful sleep. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve already. Crazy! My family and I will be opening our presents through a webcam chat in the afternoon. It'll be the first time I talk to them since the surgery. I just never really felt like talking on the phone with my teeth clenched, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I hope they can understand me well enough!

If you're reading this on the 24th, Merry Christmas Eve :)

Day 22

Well, I'm pretty sure that I finally slept for eight glorious, uninterrupted hours during the night! VICTORY!

I woke up feeling more energized, but I may have overdone it during the day and ended up feeling soooo tired after dinner. I'm still glad I had more energy after a relatively good night sleep.

I didn't do anything super exciting though. I just had to ship a few packages from eBay sales and go to the grocery store to get more ingredients for my Ensure replacement smoothies (side note: I'm actually still having one Ensure a day on top of the smoothie because otherwise I just can't reach 1500 calories). The problem is that I needed a large flat rate box for one of the item we sold, so I actually ended up going out twice and walking around town quite a bit. It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day, so I didn't mind one bit! But as I said, I felt soooo exhausted afterwards.

I was going to take a nap, but I wanted to go to Trader Joe's to get a few package of their chicken salad that I love so much, just so that I have something good to enjoy during the holiday weekend. Once we came back, I wasn't really sleepy anymore, so I ended up reading in bed until pretty late. I was also really excited/anxious about the surgeon appointment in the morning, but that's a problem I deal with all the time: whenever I have an appointment in the morning, I just can't seem to fall asleep.

Oh well.

So... not much to report today to be honest. It was a pretty good, busy, tiring (in a good way) day, but no changes at all in my post-surgery status. I'm not even going to post selfies today because the swelling is the same, and I feel like there are enough of my selfies floating around this website to last a century. I'll update when I notice a difference.

Earlier, I was browsing a jaw surgery blog that I read before my own surgery, and the difference in my reaction to it was astonishing. Whenever I'd read these blogs before surgery, I'd get incredibly anxious and would even start shaking sometimes. Even though they were helping, they still increased the amount of fear and anticipation I was dealing with. But now, when I visit them, I feel a huge sense of relief and thankfulness for being over the worst of it. If you're reading this before your surgery, know that one day, a lot sooner than you think, you will get to the same point! I know it's hard, but try not to worry too much. Anticipation is often much worse than the actual event. I've said it before but I'll say it again: time went by MUCH faster than I thought it would. Just focus on that moment in your near future where you'll be over the hump and happy to have made it. It feels great, and it's worth it! :)

Day 21

If you've read my last post, you know that I bumped my chin on the handle of a laundry basket while bending down, which sounds like an incredibly stupid way to even almost accidentally mess up your jaw surgery. Thankfully, it seems like no harm was done, and when I texted my surgeon, he said it should be fine. Phew! Let's just say I'll be ultra-extra careful from now on. My husband suggested that we get one of those dog cones to wear around my neck so that I'm more aware of my jaw. Although I appreciate the thought (not really), I feel like I would be even more prone to bump my face everywhere since I wouldn't be able to see anything.

Also, my husband insist on calling it "The Chincident" and really wants me to add it as a title, but I prefer keeping the pattern I have. There, I put it in the blog as a compromise :P

In contrast with yesterday, today was quite the lazy day. Since I went to sleep at 5 am and woke up at 9 am to text the surgeon, I ended up going back to sleep on and off until 1 pm. I kept dreaming about different ways my surgeon would answer my text. It varied widely from indifferent to yelling at me and having me back in the surgery room immediately. Let's just say it was not the most pleasant sleep I've had. He finally had some time to answer me around 11 am, so afterwards my sleep was a little more restful.

I spent the rest of the day playing Dota with some friends and working on more video editing. Nothing too exciting.

I did have some pain on the right side of my mouth towards the back, which freaked me out because of yesterday's mishap, but I honestly thing it's my braces mangling my inner cheek. I put a wad of wax in there, hoping it would help. The pain has subsided, so hopefully that was it. This reminds me: I tried using wax early on, maybe around Day 8, and it was the worst idea ever. I still had painful stitches and everything, so modeling the wax around my braces was painful and difficult, and the next morning, I could not for the life of me remove it all. It's so much easier to remove wax from your back molars when you can open your jaw and give your fingers some space. When everything is sensitive and your teeth are banded shut? Not so much. I gave up and ended up finding bits of wax on my toothbrush for the next five days. Fun times. At least now with the stitches all gone and the incisions healed, it'll be easier to remove.

On a different note, I've been struggling to keep up the calorie intake. I'm getting really sick of the liquid diet. I was already not a fan of it before the surgery. I'd sometimes have smoothies, but mostly because it's an healthy way of eating more fruits and veggies, but I never really liked liquid food, or even soup. I'm more of a stew kind of person. I've been barely making it to 1500 calories every day. Even when I'm hungry, I start drinking my food and I'm like "ugh, can this stop please". It takes me forever to finish not because it's difficult (I now just drink it straight from a glass, no straws or anything), but just because I have no desire to actually "eat" it. Plus, having to prepare everything is so annoying to me, especially since I don't enjoy that much anyway.

A few of the products I like right now.

So to help a bit, I started buying what I call "calorie supplements". It's basically already prepared smoothies and drinks that have between 200-300 calories that I can just grab and drink without having to blend and clean and all that stuff. I'm actually enjoying the yogurt smoothies since they are much closer to yogurt than smoothies. And chocolate milk does taste better than anything else. I usually have these at the end of the day, when I'm a little under 1500 calories and I just need an extra push. They do have a lot of added sugar though, but at this point, I just want to ingest enough food to heal.

I tried to take a nap after dinner, but had another dreaded and painful jaw jerk and gave up. Hopefully my joints will calm down again soon.

My face for the day:

Again, I don't think there's any change. I really should stop posting pics of the day... Do you guys still want to see them, or just when something actually looks different?

I just realized that today marks three weeks since the surgery! Only one more week to four, and then we can remove the bands. At least that's the estimate that my surgeon gave me before the surgery. Crossing fingers!

Day 20

Today turned out pretty busy, but also kinda scary.

It started out a bit late again since I slept for as long as I could as got up around noon again. I'm stuck in a late-ish schedule and won't go to sleep until 2-3 am. I should break away from it, but it's hard! Anyways, once I was up, I resolved to achieve a few goals for the day:

1. Do laundry
2. Finish making the Christmas video I was working on
3. Make (Christmas) cookies for the neighbors and leasing office

Not such an intimidating list when you didn't have surgery less than 3 weeks ago, but it's a bit of a challenge when you did. Especially if you haven't done laundry in about a month... Yikes. The piles and piles of clothes! I should have taken a pic, but I forgot.

All went well, I put loads after loads in the washing machine/dryer while working on my video, stopping every once in a while to fold the still warm clothes. I did this until late in the evening, when I had my very last load of socks and boxers. I put the hamper in front of the dryer and pushed everything in, but some of the socks fell on the side. I quickly bent over to grab them, but I miscalculated where my chin was or something, and I hit it pretty hard on the plastic handle of the laundry basket. My jaw opened slightly and was shoved backward, sending shooting pain into my joints just like when I have one of those annoying jerk.

The blue handle is where I hit my chin. Traitor!

Guys, to say that I was freaking out is an understatement. I kneeled on the floor like a true drama queen, holding my jaw in pain, wondering how much damage I had caused. Gory images of my screws shooting out, my jaw bone splitting, blood gushing flashed in my mind and I started crying. My husband came to see what was happening and tried to calm me down. The pain did receded, and there was no blood. I touched my jaw, everything seemed in place. The only pain I felt was in my joint, but I was still scared that I had somehow knocked something out of place or unbalanced my bite or something. I tried to google it to see if it had happened to anyone else after surgery, but I had no luck finding anything. I was tempted to text my surgeon, but I didn't want to bother him at 10 pm if it was nothing. So we decided to wait until the morning.

You can see the redness where I hit it.

For the next hour or so, I was very nervous and kept checking to see if there was any new swelling, but nothing happened. I finally started to calm down enough to get started on the cookies. I wasn't going to let this stop me from achieving my goals!

So I made the cookies, which smelled and looked delicious, and hopefully tasted delicious too but I couldn't tell because I couldn't eat them. Bummer. I made my favorite, signature cookies: crispy salted white chocolate oatmeal cookies. Not exactly "Christmas" cookies, but they are amazing. If you haven't had jaw surgery yet, you should try making them before you have your jaw banded shut!

I was tempted to blend them with milk,
but I knew it would be a disaster.

I did indeed finish all my goals by the end of the day, even the Christmas video from 2014 AND 2015. And just so that I don't keep you in suspense, I'm writing this a day late, so I did text my surgeon in the morning and he said "if everything is the same, it should be fine", so... Good? I'm seeing him on Friday, so maybe he'll take an x-ray just to be sure. He didn't seemed as panic about it as I was, so maybe our bones are much stronger on week 3 than we think? Crossing fingers I didn't cause any trouble.

Sleeping was very hard though. It does seem like I at least aggravated my calmed-down joints and had a few jaw jerks while trying to fall asleep, which freaked me out and gave me a bit of insomnia, lying in bed trying to analyse every little pain and thinking my jaw was messed up. I ended up falling asleep at 5 am. Ugh.

Eventually I'll get the rest I need, right?

To finish this off, here are the pics of my face on day 20. Again, not much change:

Oh, one last thing: I'm stitches free! I removed the last two little bits remaining with tweezers when I brushed my teeth. They were barely hanging on by a thread. Get it...? :P

Day 19

Well, I didn't sleep as much as I wanted to last night, but this time it wasn't even related to my jaw... At 3 am, I was sleeping pretty soundly while my husband was still working on setting up his new computer (we're night owls), when all of a sudden we lost power, and the fire alarm started blaring off. Rude awakening, to say the least! Now, the fire alarms ring so often here that we normally do a smell check for smoke/burning in the hallway and outside, and then we wait 5 minutes before deciding to get out. I know it's kind of bad, but seriously, we're on the 8th floor and it's such a pain to get the cat out of whatever crevasse she slid in to hide from the fire alarm and into her carrier. But since we lost power, it felt really scary, so we scrambled to get the cat, get dressed and get out.

It was 33 F (1 C) so it was pretty chilly, but I had a nice coat so I was fine. The funny thing is, most of the people from our building stayed in the lobby, too afraid of the cold to get out. My husband and I were too concerned that it might have been a gas leak or something so we preferred waiting outside on the other side of the street haha. We waited about 30 minutes until the firefighters let us back in saying there wasn't any danger but they didn't know why the alarms rang.

The power was still not back, so we had to climb EIGHT flights of stairs. I was a bit worried that I wasn't fit enough to do it, but I succeeded! VICTORY! I was completely out of breath though, a lot more than pre-surgery, which is normal of course. I'm just glad I didn't feel faint or anything.

With so much adrenaline running through my veins, I had trouble falling back to sleep and ended up reading until 5am, so I didn't get much sleep during the night. But for once, it wasn't because of pain, so that's good! Speaking of pain, the jaw jerks are pretty much gone again! It happened about twice today but the pain was a LOT more tolerable and didn't last as long. It seems like it's just my jaw getting used to looser bands, so I should expect it next time my surgeon makes a change.

Face update; still not much change in swelling, still have a yellow-ish bruise on each side, still have folliculitis (and I actually used a zinc soap bar on my chest tonight to see if it would help):

I was hoping the surgery would erase my
laugh lines, but nope :(

In the afternoon, I guess I felt empowered by the fact that I had climbed eight flights of stairs the night before; I figured I could go back to walking to the grocery store like I used to. It's about 10 minutes away, which is pretty close. The trip went very well, I got almost everything I needed, but of course forgot one ingredient I needed for tonight's dinner, so I had to change my plans. Oh well. I was a little out of breath on the way back, and the cold air makes the inside of my nose burn. It's still pretty sensitive in there since I got a septoplasty as well. I don't talk about it much because there isn't much to report on it. The only symptoms are a little soreness when I pinch it or wiggle it, and now the burning feeling when I walk in the cold. It feels kind of like when you had a bad cold and it's ultra dry and burning.

I had my trusty caddy for the grocery trip, which made everything much easier. I love this thing! You can bend the handle in half and hook it at the end of your shopping cart, which is super useful.

This also looks like a paid sponsor, but sadly it's not, lol.

The rest of the day, I worked on editing some videos. I make montages of big holidays or trips we take, but these past few years, I haven't had much time to make all of them. So right now I'm working on Christmas 2014. Yeah, that's how late I am, hah! Hopefully I can catch up during my last week off. I've gotten so much faster at making them, so there's a good chance I'll achieve that goal!

I took a one-hour nap after dinner, which was glorious. I'm definitely still tired, no improvement on that front, but then again I didn't exactly have a restful night last night so... We'll see.

Oh, one thing to mention: I can now sleep flat on my back and on my side without any problem! It hurts a little bit at first, but eventually goes away. When I wake up, there's a little bit of cramping, but that also goes away quickly. I'm so relieved. Sleeping on my side is SO much more comfortable, it feels like a warm bath after a walk in the winter night. Can you tell I'm excited about side sleeping? :P

Day 18

This morning was much better than yesterday: no jaw jerk! Yay!

I had resolved to sleep as much as possible today, taking as many naps as necessary to start feeling better. I woke up a few times in the morning but went back to sleep until noon. I'm not sure how many consecutive hours I slept, but it was a lot more than I've slept in the past 3 weeks! And sure enough, today I felt a lot more alert. Still fatigued, but not constantly sleepy.

I did have a migraine when I got up, but it happened once last week and it magically went away after eating, so I knew it was probably just because I had slept for so long that I went too long without any calories. So I made my banana chocolate peanut butter smoothie and the pounding headache was gone!

I didn't even end up taking any naps today since I didn't feel sleepy. I managed to make the bed and tidy up a bit, wash my hair, finish my video game. At dinnertime, my husband made some Trader Joe potstickers, and I blended my portion with some chicken stock and sour cream. Last time I did this, it worked perfectly, but this time I decided to add some steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots to the mix to add some veggies. Bad idea. The cauliflower didn't seem to blend well and there were lumps of it still in the liquid. I didn't feel like reblending everything since I had washed the blender, so it was a struggle to eat even half of the mixture. I'm sad to say that I had to resort back to Ensure. Oops! It's just so easy...

The cauliflowers kinda ruined it.

I also blended the pudding I made with some whole milk, and it was good! But it was basically chocolate milk if you think about it, hah! It just seems like such a hassle to make a batch of pudding when you can just straight up buy chocolate milk, or make it with powdered chocolate. No need to blend. Pudding will be nice when I can open my mouth though. At least the texture is different from all the liquids I've been having.

Today's photos were taken by my husband with the outside camera of my phone, so my head isn't all distorted by the lens. It looks a lot better (and closer to reality). I'll try to have him take all the pics from now on, although sometimes I wonder if it's really necessary to take these every day now. The swelling doesn't change much.

At this angle you can see a jawline!

Excuse the wad of wax on the top right. Speaking and smiling so much yesterday with my friends tore up my inner upper lip, so I needed to cover the damn hooks. Can't wait for those to be out.

I did have a little surprise today when I took another profile pic. My beautiful jawline seemed to have disappeared. My husband says it's because there's a little more swelling today, but I'm wondering if the other pics I took just had a different angle. I'm a bit disappointed, but at the same time, I know it's still too early to tell. My husband may be right, I might still have enough swelling to hide the jawline, but it's hard for me to tell what is "normal" and "swollen" at this point, since so much of my shape at the bottom changed.

We'll see in a few months I guess! I still love my profile, even without the defined jawline. The chin is so much less "weak" than before.

You can also tell I'm struggling a bit with acne/folliculitis. My face has been SO insanely oily, but it has gotten better in the past few days. However, I've had folliculitis since the surgery, but it's not new for me. It seems like I get it every single time I take antibiotics. I think it kills some good bacteria on my skin that keep whatever is causing folliculitis in check. It usually takes 1-2 months to go away. It's annoying, but it doesn't really do anything other than look bad and sometimes itch a tiny bit. It's even more noticeable after a shower, as you can see here:

It's only on my face, neck and upper chest.

Other than that, the stitches on my upper gums, the only ones remaining, are almost all gone. The areas where all the stitches were still feel pretty stiff though. I can't tell if it's because they're slightly numb, or if it's really just stiffness. My gums are still all numb except for the lower right part, and so is that same area I've talked about before. I sometimes get a little lightning shock in there, but not much else and pretty rarely. Hopefully it'll start waking up soon, although I'm dreading that a little bit, especially the gums. I'm worried it'll be painful.

Next week is my last week off before I start working "part-time". Most of my clients are off for the entire week of Christmas, except for one of them. But it's also one of my most productive client, so I should be getting quite a few small, urgent projects during the day. At least I get to work from home and I don't have to actually talk on the phone, so it should be easier. And it's nice that it's only one client to start with! The first week of January might be less brutal if I ease myself into it.

I can't believe it's Christmas in one week. I feel like I missed the anticipation and excitement of it all though, given that I was not feeling great for 2 weeks. I usually like to go to events in the cities around and do some fun Christmas activities, but this year it didn't really happen for obvious reasons. It's OK though, I'm kind of glad my surgery happened at this time of the year. It was an easier pill to swallow for my customers, since it's common for employees and contractors to be out at random times in December.

There's always next year, with a brand-new, fully functioning jaw! It's crazy to think that all of this will be way behind me by this point, and I probably won't even be thinking about it at all.

Day 17

Today's morning was a little brutal with the return of the dreaded jaw jerk. This time, the pain was located only on my left. It jerked early at 7 am, waking me up writhing in pain. The shock-like pain lasted a few minutes, too, much longer than it used to. Afterwards it felt like that joint was misaligned or something. Once again, I'm worried that I'm doing some permanent damage to it. Hopefully not... I'll bring it up with the surgeon next week. I had another jerk at around 9 am and decided to just get up at that point.

The fatigue is definitely still there, unfortunately. However, the swelling seems to be down even more. It's hard to tell from the outside that there is any swelling remaining, and even when I touch, it seems almost all gone! This is probably going to be how my face will look like permanently.

A new background today: inside the car.

The thing that sucks about selfie is that the image is sort of distorted. My forehead looks so huge in these! Tomorrow, I'll ask my husband to take the photos of the day.

Today, we had planned on visiting our closest friends who now live about 50 minutes away. They had a baby on December 1st, a day after my surgery, so we hadn't had the chance to meet her yet! I was excited to see them, but also a little wary of going on a long-ish trip for the first time. It turned out perfectly fine though! I did have two painful jaw jerks on the way there, both time caused by straws and me accidentally moving my jaw to accommodate for it (curse you, straws!).

When my friends saw me, they said my face changed noticeably. I was actually wondering how I looked to other people, since everything was so gradual to me and my husband that it now looks "normal". I was happy to hear that there was indeed a big difference! The other thing is that most of the change is from my profile, and I obviously never see my profile when I look in the mirror, nor did I see it before the surgery. As I've said before, I only saw it in pictures and videos, and I HATED it so much that I'd delete most of them. Now I won't have to!

We chatted for about 2 hours, and eventually my jaw started getting tired, so we knew it was time to go. I wasn't exactly cleared to talk so much, but it was so nice to socialize and see my friends (and their adorable, tiny little baby girl!). We also got to meet their parents, visiting from Australia!

I was completely exhausted when I arrived home. The outing lasted about 4 hours including the driving; the longest I've had since the surgery, so extra fatigue was to be expected! I considered taking a nap, but I had slacked quite a bit on eating, so I had some catching up to do food-wise.

I spent the evening play Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, a game I received at Christmas last year but only got around to playing now. I'm really enjoying the Victorian era of the game, the first of the series set in a time where there was electricity, which is pretty cool :)

Rainy, foggy London in the Victorian era.

The day ended much like it had begun: just as I started falling asleep, my jaw jerked again, sending shooting, shock-like pain through my left joint that lasted a few minutes. I won't lie, I started crying out of frustration. My husband brought me the heating pad to see if it would help. I kept it on for as long as it was hot. I was scared of trying to go to sleep again in case the jerk happened again. That's the biggest problem with this I guess. It sends me into this vicious cycle of not really wanting to go to sleep because I'm so scared my jaw will jerk, but feeling so exhausted that I become really emotional. It hurts so much, even if it's only for a few minutes, and I don't see how taking painkillers would help. It would be like taking Tylenol in case you hit your knee on the corner of a table, for example.

I'm wondering if the problem is that none of my teeth are touching on the left side. Maybe it's making my jaw all spastic because nothing is really anchoring it. Or maybe none of my teeth are touching because the joint is misaligned. I'm even wondering if it's dislocated. It feels like it's trapped, or stuck or something. The right joint feels fine, but the left one feels like any movement is the wrong way. It's hard to explain :P But I'm thinking that if it was dislocated, it would hurt constantly. no? Right now, it only hurts when it jerks to the side. It doesn't even hurt when I open my mouth. Anyways, I'll see how the next few days go. Maybe this is just a period of adjustment because my bands are so much looser. The jerks eventually went away last time, so maybe I just have to be patient. "Be patient" is pretty much the motto for this surgery, haha.

Anyways, when I was ready to try falling asleep again, I figured I would try to sleep on my left side, thinking it might prevent my jaw from moving by putting a bit of weight on it. The joint pain I was experiencing when lying flat/on my side has been much better now. It happens during the first few minutes but eventually dissipate. So I try sleeping on my left, and I'm happy to report that there were no more jerks to wake me up.

Baby steps!