MMA Surgery & Apnea Experience (long)

[Guest guest]

Hi folks,

Newbie here. Wow, what a great list, everyone is so friendly and

knowledgeable. I just found this group and wish I had known about it

before.

Well, I wanted to share my experience about having recently had

maxillofacial mandibular advancement (MMA) surgery. Upper and lower

jaws moved forward, upper jaw widened a bit at the back. Had braces

for a year, now the surgery, will have the braces on for another 6-9

months.

Primary goal of the surgery was to deal with the sleep apnea.

Secondary goal was to correct my bite. And my surgeon said I'd get

an " incidental cosmetic enhancement " as a result of the surgery,

LOL!

Apparently my lower jaw and chin were receded, but it never really

bothered me until I saw my profile as compared to a more " normal "

profile.

I had the surgery on Jan. 10th of this year, about 7 weeks ago, and

I think it was a success, in that I think my apnea has been

significantly reduced, if not eliminated. This is anecdotal, just

based on how I feel and what my wife is telling me. I am scheduled

for a follow-up sleep study in a couple of months and will know more

then.

My recovery was quite difficult for the first few weeks. For some

reason my swelling was very bad. I was sent home from the hospital

the day after the surgery, but when I got home, my face continued to

swell. We spoke to my surgeon a few times during the day as I was

feeling like my throat was slowly constricting. He told me to take

it easy and I did, but the swelling continued.

Finally, I told my wife to call an ambulance to take me back to the

hospital. It had got to the point where I was afraid if it got any

worse, I wouldn't be able to breath, was having difficulties

swallowing. I'm sure we could have made it to the hospital if we had

just driven there, but I was afraid to take any chances. My first

ride in an ambulance. When the EMT's got there, they said we did the

right thing calling them.

My surgeon met me at the ER in the hospital, sometime after

midnight, and he got me admitted straight into Intensive Care. They

immediately put me on an IV and got some type of steriods in me that

helped with the swelling. The ICU was great. It was like a 5 star

hotel. I stayed there for 2 days, then they sent me home. By the

time they sent me home, the swelling had gone down to more normal

type swelling, and I could cope a lot better.

Then, once I got home to start my " normal " recovery again, I started

having terrible night sweats. These lasted about 4 weeks. None of my

docs could find a reason for them (had all kinds of tests done) and

they just went away on their own. I'm wondering if it was due to the

shock to my body and all the drugs. I dropped about 20 lbs from my

already skinny frame, so perhaps my body just freaked out. Well,

they have pretty much gone away completely, but it was pretty rough

there for a few weeks when all's I wanted to do was get some rest at

night, and I would wrestle around with my covers half the night

trying to regulate my body temp, then later I would wake up in a

cold sweat, t-shirt soaked. Thank goodness those are over.

Like many of you have reported, I had a real hard time eating,

although at this point I'm eating a lot of the softer solid foods

and that is great. The worst of the swelling has gone down, but I

still have a bit on my right side by my lower jaw, and some

localized swelling around the hardware that you can't see, but I can

feel it. Good news is it seems to be going down a bit every day.

Lots of numbness too. Especially around the chin. Its driving me

crazy, but again, less and less every day. Its just so slow.

Also I too went through a couple of periods of extreme grouchyness.

I was pretty bad, but my wife took it in stride.

Inspite of all the challenges I've had, I'm pretty excited about the

idea of not having sleep apnea anymore, and having my bite

corrected, and getting my " incidental cosmetic enhancement " .

And I think my experience with the extreme swelling and the night

sweats is very unusual, at least that's what my surgeon told me, so

I hope I am not scaring anyone. I also think the human body can be

an unpredicatble thing, and what happened to me just happened. The

most important thing is that I am fine now.

And I'm even not really slurring my woods and specking li I hav a

speeth a-pedimeth anymo. WHA?! U canth unner thand me?! LOL!

Well, that's my story. Good to find this group and see that others

are sharing and supporting each other.

Ed