Would you be happy with my result? PICTURES

[jawbreakerbeach]

Hello there, transplanting from Archwired. I'd like some honest feedback on my results. However please don't PM me asking for personal details or more pictures or whatnot. What I'm comfortable putting up here is up here.

So I'm about 11 months postop and I'm just not happy with my results.

I went with one of the renowned expensive surgeons who is mentioned a lot on boards like these. He seemed sooo confident from day one that he could fix everything and I guess I just lapped it up like a sick puppy dog.

My biggest concerns pre-op were recessed mandible, asymmetry left to right (chin juts out to one side), canted jaw, midlines off center, gummy smile, and an uneven overbite-almost-a-crossbite.

I can't find my sheet with the exact movements but the general idea was maxilla up and forward, mandible rotated up, genio, both jaws supposedly leveled and aligned for the cant and asymmetry.

POST-OP.

• Profile / side view looks great. Can't complain.

• Bite is better and teeth are straight but the braces mostly did that.

• No gummy smile, still some tooth show at rest but largely improved.

• It looks like my jaw is still slanted just as much as pre-surgery! Though my surgeon swears he leveled it out. What is the point of having straight teeth when the whole mouth is slanting in the wrong direction.

• My midlines are still off center. Surgeon admits to that and says "I usually get them on straighter than that and I'm not happy with it either." But then backpedals saying because of anesthesia and all the ligaments softening and whatnot that what I have is an acceptable margin of error.

• My chin still juts off to the left. He said this was fixable pre-op but now says there was nothing he could do???

All these are post-op.



My ortho wasn't happy with my outcome but the surgeon talked him down, and then they both talked me out of braces and told me to wait it out. I had a lot of swelling late in the game (~7 months) so it made sense at the time. Now I'm pretty sure there's no swelling left and it doesn't look right.

My surgeon did offer to redo the surgery "if I really wanted" but also said there was no guarantee he could do it any better. Am I crazy for thinking it should have turned out differently? Is this as good as it gets?

[Lazlo]

You look great, bite looks AWESOME. I'd die to have that bite. No one is symmetrical and everyone has off midlines a bit --its actually very common. You're obsessing about nonsense. You need to enjoy your results and move on. Don't play with fire.

[jawbreakerbeach]

Point taken.

I'm almost not asking SHOULD I HAVE SURGERY AGAIN because going through that again would probably be insane. But from a purely hypothetical IS THIS REALLY THE BEST SURGERY that 70k can buy. I went with the best because it's my face and it all fell short. I think I could have gotten the same bite from the guy down the road...my bite was not terrible to begin with.

The cant/slant being what it is postop still seems way off. If you take a ruler across my midline it almost hits the pupil of my left eye. Not what I expected from this particular surgeon.

It'd be easier for me to come terms with it all either way, either that I am bats**t crazy for caring OR that I could have had a better result with the money I paid and just got unlucky. I'm leaning towards the second just because my ortho really put up a stink and he's not the type to do so.

[Lazlo]

Point taken.

I'm almost not asking SHOULD I HAVE SURGERY AGAIN because going through that again would probably be insane. But from a purely hypothetical IS THIS REALLY THE BEST SURGERY that 70k can buy. I went with the best because it's my face and it all fell short. I think I could have gotten the same bite from the guy down the road...my bite was not terrible to begin with.

The cant/slant being what it is postop still seems way off. If you take a ruler across my midline it almost hits the pupil of my left eye. Not what I expected from this particular surgeon.

It'd be easier for me to come terms with it all either way, either that I am bats**t crazy for caring OR that I could have had a better result with the money I paid and just got unlucky. I'm leaning towards the second just because my ortho really put up a stink and he's not the type to do so.

Well you went with A/G probably. Listen, this surgery results in SO MANY COMPLICATIONS normally, that if you don't actually feel you have functional issues, then I'd DEFINITELY let it be. No one can see this asymmetry but you. Your surgeon will do a free redo?

[Lazlo]

As for the price. You definitely could have taken his/her plan and shown it to a very good surgeon and probably saved like 40 grand. But listen, this is your face and your life. The midline no one can see and your bite looks great. the slight asymmetry in the chin can probably be corrected in other ways. You know how many people i know who have had this surgery and just wish they never had it done because of all the functional problems? Many. So you're very very lucky.

[jawbreakerbeach]

Hey, truly, I get it, I'm super lucky and there are people starving in Africa and I could die tomorrow just by getting in a car and then truly no one would care about my slightly deviated jaw.

I'm really not all depressed about this, more like buyer's remorse and wondering if others who bought a Ferrari jaw would be disappointed when they ended up with a perfectly serviceable Hyundai. But yeah, I am lucky to have the luxury of that conversation. All opinions are worth something. Thanks for your input

[Lazlo]

how's sensation by the way? If you have full sensation, then let me tell you girl, it was worth the 70 grand.

[notrain]

what did you look like pre op?

my opinion: if you don't take money into account, the results are good.

however, i can understand your frustration about the price tag, because i agree with you that for 70k $ i would also expect a perfect result.
the expectation of a perfect result is why you paid 70k instead of 35k in the first place.

if it were my body, i would not go through another surgery because the flaws are minor just as lazlo said.

if the only pain you feel is in your wallet, you came out ahead.

just my 2 cents.

[Modigliani]

My heart sank after reading the first few lines of your post and as someone with a real botched surgery behind me I feared the worst...until I scrolled down and saw your pics.

I agree with the others, your issues are so minor and only apparent if you really scrutinise, understandable that you would after shelling out that much money - it's only natural that you would expect mm perfection, unfortunately bodies don't always conform.

You need to put it behind you and move on, enjoy your life and your new bite 

[jawbreakerbeach]

Yeah I was expecting perfection for who I went with and price I paid.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful or minimize anyone who has had a worse outcome.

I do NOT have full feeling. I have a big horizontal strip starting at my lower lip and extending to my chin. Weirdly I can feel my chin okay which my OS said is usually what stays numb. I can't feel my lower lip all the way across and about a quarter inch under that. It's not just a spot it's a whole band that feels completely dead, no tingling. The surgeon is baffled by that as no nerves were severed and we can't see any compression.  So practically speaking I can't eat soup without dribbling over myself and kissing is unpleasant now. I kind of talk out of one side of my mouth because I guess I can't feel how to readjust. So it's not all roses and sunshine I will probably have that for the rest of my life since its a year out.

[Gregor Samsa]

I think you are right to feel the way you do. I'd most likely be disappointed too if I didn't end up with a perfect result (or at least close to it) after having paid that much for the surgery. Your pictures don't really show the issues you've described though.

[jawbreakerbeach]

I may post some more pictures and some preop ones later, but the chilly reception has me feeling uncomfortable now. It seems like there are tons of posts on here of people micro-analyzing their face but I guess most don't post pictures so who knows if their issues are "minor" or not.

To answer the question of how I looked pre, it's similar to these people:






From the side I looked a bit worse because my nose is huge and my forehead is taller than any of those pics. My chin also has no natural bump or projection, it's like a flat board so it made the recession more pronounced.

The weird slanting and midline misplacement is what bothers me most postop. For whatever reason it is much more noticeable postop than it was preop. I look at preop pictures and still struggle to understand why my midline looks further off and more slanted in my postops. When surgeon says that it should be much more level and roughly the same horizontal placement.

In my opinion, side aesthetics improved and front AT REST aesthetics improved. But I do not like my smile from the front. My SO took a couple of pictures on a trip recently and asked me why I was smiling crooked (and he doesn't even notice when I get my hair cut!), so it's hard to ignore my feelings that things were misplaced in my mouth somehow.

[Lazlo]

Yeah I was expecting perfection for who I went with and price I paid.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful or minimize anyone who has had a worse outcome.

I do NOT have full feeling. I have a big horizontal strip starting at my lower lip and extending to my chin. Weirdly I can feel my chin okay which my OS said is usually what stays numb. I can't feel my lower lip all the way across and about a quarter inch under that. It's not just a spot it's a whole band that feels completely dead, no tingling. The surgeon is baffled by that as no nerves were severed and we can't see any compression.  So practically speaking I can't eat soup without dribbling over myself and kissing is unpleasant now. I kind of talk out of one side of my mouth because I guess I can't feel how to readjust. So it's not all roses and sunshine I will probably have that for the rest of my life since its a year out.

Yeah okay, that's a concern for sure. That said, don't worry there may be sensory improvements. Nerves can indeed regenerate, but s**t, it's my biggest fear with regards to kissing. I love kissing girls, I mean I live for it. And if my kissing was impaired in any way I'd be severely (more) depressed. I thought functionally you were perfect, but I understand your frustration. For 70 grand, yes I'd expect perfection.

But I'll let you and everyone else on this board in on a little secret NO SURGEON WILL EVER TELL YOU. THEY DON'T KNOW s**t!! THE STATE OF THIS ART IS SO BLOODY PRIMITIVE AND FULL OF CHANCE AND FACTORS EVEN THE BEST SURGEONS IN THE WORLD HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF.

BE WARNED: When you agree to jaw surgery you're playing russian roulette. There is NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT RESULT. It's a f**king breaking of your face apart, moving it around and reattaching it. The body does the healing, not the surgeon. It's sad but true and something after three years of researching this bloody game I realize. Surgeons, even well intentioned ones ALL LIE. I think it's part of their training.

[Lazlo]

You're misreading my tone. I'm incredibly supportive of you. Just being honest about what I think. The sensory stuff has me a lot more sympathetic towards you than the chin asymmetry. But truth be told, I can't really see how bad the chin is from such a close-scale fragment photo. You'd have to post a longer scale pic.

[jawbreakerbeach]

I also had jaw surgery recommended after a first attempt in braces which failed to correct my bite. It wasn't all about aesthetics but I was terrified of having someone break my face and put it back together, and so I wanted to make sure everything looked right after.

My bite wasn't terrible and actually looked okay cosmetically from the front, but the asymmetry of my jaw was just enough that it wouldn't "settle" with braces alone. I had to basically rip my food and eat on one side.

To Lazlo, yes I am tired of the runaround. If nothing else at least I guess I can warn other people that you may not get butchered by the world's top surgeon but there are plenty of imperfect cases out there.