Hi All I had BSSO back in 2009 and wanted to share my experience.
A little background: I was always ugly. People called me ugly to my face. old ,young, middle ,woman men didn't matter. they did. I realized my face was "off" when I got my contacts. I always wore glasses so I never really saw myself without glasses , and I had big glasses. I didn't know what to make of it , or why or what was wrong, but I just didn't look like all the other people. After being made fun of like crazy the contacts went back into the case.....like Douglas MCcarthur I vowed "They will return".
Years later, I turned 21 and decided enough is enough, I need to fix my face. But I had no clue. I stumbled upon a web site called "ytf: yes they're fake. I spend a few months reading and realized just about every part of my face needed augmentation. I was all ready to go to one of the top implant docs at the time and get jaw,cheek etc. The I met MISS J
At the time MISS J did free ,morphs. I sent her my pic. She sent me back her commentary which pretty ripped my face apart. That was the first time I heard the words recessed. Then at the end for my jaw she said I need max fax bone cutting surgery as she called it. I asked for an explanation , she told me. I remember thinking to myself WTF this woman's insane. I dismissed her in my head. So as I started saving for my implant surgery ,I started see her recommending this surgery to more and more people on the board(this started the maxfax revolution of 2006). I still don't know what came over me but my mind started to change. The final push was I figured logically if I get a BSSO I can get even more augmentation with implants later where if I go with implants first I'm stuck. Also it made sense Ive always had a double chin all my post puberty life even though I never weighed more than 110 pounds in high school.
I started looking for a surgeon. I will admit I didn't do such a through job as I only looked in my state. I found someone on yahoo groups who every one raved about Dr. Stephen Sachs in NYC. I made an appointment. I was expecting him to say I don't do cosmetic only cases but he didn't say it. I didn't have out of network insurance to pay for it so I got the fee. 20k for surgeons fee. They said hospital fee is to early to determine but will be between 5-10k. Anesthesia like 1-2k. At the time I was a college student but still worked full time but didnt make that kind of money. But I decided regardless this will be done even if I need to take a loan.
I was already in braces to straighten my teeth so now I had to break the news to my ortho who Ive known for years (I'm a 2 time brace wearer). I told her she thought I was insane but said sachs is great and shes on board except........I now need to pay more since were changing plans. I said yes do it.So we started.
IT TOOK FOREVER FOR MY TEETH TO MOVE. It was like Bea Arthur on roller skates. I started this Jan 07 I wouldnt have surgery until sept 09. BIG TIP OF ADVICE: However much a pain it is to floss with braces do it!. Once I started doing it (I was laways told to do it but didnt) my teeth moved better. Every day brush with an oral b electric toothbruish, floss, use mouth wash.
So in the meantime I graduated college and got a job with insruance that had out of network coverage and they paid for majority of my surgery.
So sept 2009 came around and we were now ready for surgery!. My doctor did a morph for me and I loved it ( real surgery never matches the morph its either worse or better, mine came out good but not as good as the morph).
so surgery day came, I was nervous but like all my other surgeries you have to just keep reminding yourself why your doing this and just go forward. Surgery was uneventful I woke up in recovery. I didn't see myself yet. I spent 1 night in the hospital. The next morning my mom came and took me home. I looked in the mirror swollen as f%ck .
so I was on a liquid diet and hated it. I had trouble with pudding, I bought ensure but it was expensive and didn't fill me up. So then I came across an idea BIG TIP: MILKSHAKES!! . I bought a blender a huge tub of ice cream , huge jug of milk and made a milkshake. It went down perfectly. It had good calories also. I lived off this the next month practically. It was delicious.
Then I had my follow ups. I am happy with the results although I feel my jaw should have been advanced a bit more even if it needed to be rotated more for that.The front came out excellent. The profile on one side could have been a bit more but imo the frontal view is more important. But I am happy with it. I had a submental lipectomy the next year with dr, guyuron to clean up all that fat so I can have a tight jaw line.
Heres some tips on things I'd do differently:
I have spent a lot of time on the height surgery message board with in a sense is the same type of surgery just on your legs. A lot of things those guys od can help max fax patients
1) Bone broth: Bone borth soup is loaded with calcium and is known for helping people heal especially with fracture. Just go to your grocery get chicken and beef soup bones (also ask for marrow bones). Boil it for a few hours and there you have bone broth. Just drink it cold since hot soup probably isnt a good idea post surgery.
http://www.food.com/recipe/mineral-rich-bone-broth-4979422) take a calcium and vitamin d supplament post op. It would have to be liquid obviously. Amazon.com has a few. Limb lengthening doctors notice better healing and faster reovery when their patients take vitamin d and calcium supplaments during recovery. The bone forms quicker.
3) protein powder: add it to the milk shake. Protein is great for bones, and will help with the lack of nutrition post surgery
4) L-glutamine supplament- granted all the studies show glutamine helping post surgery via I.V but its cheap and readily available.
http://divinehealthfromtheinsideout.com/2010/06/why-i-take-l-glutamine/I've enclosed some pics. Please note this is after BSSO and Lipectomy.
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