Month 10

Since my debracing post was pretty long, I figured I'd give you an overall update in a separate post. The last five months were fairly uneventful save for the debracing, but I did have a few things I wanted to mention.

Swelling
Around the 7-month mark, my features started looking sharper, as if another chunk of swelling disappeared rapidly. My chin and jaw are more defined now, and my face looks slimmer. I just look like a better version of my old self, not an entirely different person anymore.

Maybe you won't see it in the pictures, but I definitely noticed a difference. However, sometimes I wonder if it's just the way I saw myself that changed. When I look at my nose now, I can't believe I thought it looked massive after the surgery. Even when I look at old pictures from day 3-5, I still don't understand why I thought it was so big. It's incredible how much your brain can affect the perception you have of your appearance. This is some real body dysmorphia if you ask me. I distinctly remember seeing my nose twice as big as it really was.

So if there's anything to take away from this, and I know I've mentioned it in other posts but this is very important: you need to be patient. It took me SEVEN months to like my face and see it as it really was. And even now, when I see myself in video clips (which I rarely take), I hate the way I speak and the way my face moves. I now know that it's probably because I have to get used to it, so I don't worry about it. Give yourself time. A LOT of time. Don't make any judgment on your face until you've seen it under all angles for months and months. Trust me on this one!

Joint cracking
The joint cracking and soreness/pain that started after surgery has gotten better over time, but it's still happening even after 10 months. However, it's very inconsistent now. Certain days, everything is fine, and others I can barely open my mouth more than two fingers wide (I can usually do three fingers now) without one side hurting too much. Usually it's linked to something I ate that was too hard. However, towards the end of my brace treatment, my orthodontist instructed me to wear rubber bands 24/7. During that time, my joints were doing really poorly. They kept cracking and popping every time I bit into something, no matter how soft, almost as if they were popping out of the joint. It felt awful. Not really painful, although sometimes it did hurt, but the feeling was just... ugh. Like nails on a chalkboard. My joints just felt unstable and I was afraid of eating.

I got really scared and googled it, which plunged me into a spiral of anxiety because I thought I was getting condylar resorption post-surgery. So I went to see my surgeon, who said I most likely did not have condylar resorption, and told me to give it a bit more time and see how I feel when the braces are off. He said it might be a worsening of my TMJ, but it was too early to tell, and if it were, I would just have to wear a splint at night. He said it was normal to have cracking and popping, but it should be getting better, not worse.

The good news is that it got WAY better once I started wearing the rubber bands only at night. Now that my braces are off, I still get some popping, but a lot less. My left joint is stiffer and sometimes hurt, but it's back to being inconsistent. I do feel like it's getting better, and I attribute some of it to eating harder food now that I can. I'm going to give it a few months and see if it gets better and better. I'm hoping it's just part of the healing process and not TMJ, because that would suck. However, I knew it was part of the risks of the surgery, so if it is TMJ, we'll deal with it when the time comes.

Nighttime slack-jaw
One of the most annoying things in the last five months was that every single night, when I'd fall asleep, my mouth would hang WIDE open. Like three-fingers-wide open! I have no idea why. This started happening after I stopped wearing rubber bands at night, and it was driving me crazy. I could feel my bottom jaw relax and slide waaay down while I drifted off to sleep. And I wasn't even breathing through my mouth! Thankfully, after the second round of rubber bands, it seemed to have gotten better. It still happens sometimes, but it's not quite as wide. I did make a conscious effort to keep it closed whenever I would wake up slightly in-between sleeping stages, so maybe that did the trick. I thought I'd mention it because I looked it up online and no one ever said anything about this 😅.

Numbness
Sadly, my numbness is still there. I swear it's better though, but honestly it's so hard to tell at this point. I would say the feeling is back to about 80%. I feel pressure, temperatures, light touch and everything, but it's still not "full," and there's still a slight tingle whenever there's anything touching the area. I only notice it when I think about it. It definitely feels stiffer than the rest of my face, but I know it's not. I have a full range of motions, it's just the feeling that seems "stiff." At this point, I'd be fine with it staying the same. It's not a bother AT ALL, except if I have crumbs or maybe a little bit of water dripping that I can't quite feel. However, I heard that nerves can still repair themselves years later, so maybe things will be different in a couple of years.

Slightly numb area in red.

Diet
I got my braces off about two weeks ago, and since then, I've been eating increasingly hard things, including almonds, hard candies, popcorn, etc. As I mentioned earlier, this seemed to increase some of the joint aches and pops, but it's getting slightly better. I'm still a little wary of it because whenever I bite something hard, the popping/instability is worse, as if I'm not biting down correctly. I try to readjust my bite to see if I can position my bottom jaw a little more towards the back, but it doesn't seem to help. I think I just need practice. I remember three months ago I couldn't even take a bite of a sandwich and it felt like I never could again, but now I have no problem with it. So I'm not too worried about it for now (or at least I'm trying not to). I'll keep on eating harder stuff and reassess in a few months!

So that's it for the 10-month update! It took so long to get my braces off that now the 1-year mark is super close. I'll still write a small update because it's a big milestone, but I'm assuming not much will change until then 😅.

See you then!