4 years later still confused on if jaw surgery was the right decision for me

[chemtrail_lizard]

hey everyone. i posted on here a while ago, and have since came back after having a lefort 1 to correct an open bite

i have so many concerns and anxieties from the surgery that rule my daily life, and constantly wonder whether i made the right choice by trusting my doctors at the time and having the jaw surgery

the worst part of it is that i didn't want to have the surgery in the first place, but felt like i was just doing what i had to do at the time - and even researched TADs and mentioned it to the ortho who didn't feel confident that it would be the best route to take because of the lack of research. then a few years go by and there's a ton more research and i feel like i missed out on a less invasive treatment that probably would have worked and it leaves me feeling a bit helpless that it is out of my control now and that i went through a traumatic surgery when i didn't have to.

the treatment started with a mouth guard because i had TMJD symptoms all the time, clicking/popping/locking, ear fullness, dulled hearing, ear infections semi frequently, and ringing in the ear (would get much louder when turning my head) one of my discs was displaced, and the joint was sitting higher up pretty much in the ear canal which the splint helped. then i had braces to fix the bite, and they said my case was borderline and felt like surgery would be the best option to take (they considered the TADs at the time too) i honestly was just following their opinion and i sort of feel like i shouldn't have. part of me questions whether the mouth guard made my bite worse to where i became a surgical case because for a short bit the dentist let me wear a partial coverage splint after it broke.

i was also a mouth breather, it was difficult to breathe through my nose and had bad quality of sleep and would wake up in drool

here are a bunch of photos from before/after and such
https://imgur.com/a/IJDPE

the surgeon said that the he can't guarantee the surgery would help but felt like it should(he specialized in tmj as well). luckily it did though. i don't have the issues i was having before mentioned above anymore, but feel like i could have alleviated those issues without surgery if i was informed enough on every treatment possibility

i wish that i had an obvious deformity or something that would have really made the surgery worthwhile. i feel like aside from the tmj problems i was having nobody really knew i had an issue with my bite. i don't even think my face looked too bad before to where the surgery would have made a drastic positive difference. it's been hard for me to feel positive and put it all behind me and move forward.

in terms of post-surgical issues, i can't really list many. i had an infection a year later that needed to be cleared out. the roof of my mouth has feeling everywhere but might be less ticklish than it used to be/slightly more dull. that's about it though

what do you guys think? do you think the surgery was a good option in my case? or do you think my judgement is fair in that it was a bit too extreme?

[PloskoPlus]

Let's see.  You fixed your functional issues. You look either better or at least no worse than before. You have no long term complications.

I look different. I have massive nerve damage and I've recently started getting popping noises in my joint which I never had before.

Congratulations! You won!

[purplish]

You look good! I'd say it was a success 

[CCW]

Why are you not happy with your surgery if you all issues were fixed and you had no complications? You had a pretty large open bite which couldn't have been fixed without surgery.

[chemtrail_lizard]

Let's see.  You fixed your functional issues. You look either better or at least no worse than before. You have no long term complications.

I look different. I have massive nerve damage and I've recently started getting popping noises in my joint which I never had before.

Congratulations! You won!

dude i'm sorry to hear about this. do you think the changes were positive or negative or more than you anticipated? is it a bad different? i had a ton of popping/locking in my joint prior to braces which a splint was helping, i wonder if that would help you at the point you're at now if the popping bothers you. if you ever did try that route just make sure it wouldn't effect your bite

You look good! I'd say it was a success 

hey thanks for the encouragement! i hope so.

Why are you not happy with your surgery if you all issues were fixed and you had no complications? You had a pretty large open bite which couldn't have been fixed without surgery.

good question - this is what i ask myself all the time now. i'm hoping you are knowledgeable of what is considered more surgical than non-surgical in terms of malocclusions because i literally have myself convinced after having surgery that my bite could have been fixed with without surgery with braces/TADs after reading the success stories and research that came out afterward. when you see the ceph xray do you see a clear surgical case? unless there is something i'm not considering about the pre-surgical bite like an accompanying overbite or overjet, reading about how the tads allow the lower jaw to swing forward and up made me think it could have been resolved that way. i hope i'm wrong though, but i have a lack of faith in my treatment plan being the correct one even though the surgery was successful.

as far as complications go, one of the alar stitches needed to be removed about a year post-op after causing an infection, but that went well and i was fine(but i was awake during the maxillary exploration surgery it was very painful). the roof of my mouth is a little less sensitive, and i can notice a feeling in my face if i think about it. more like it doesn't feel 'completely' like it did before the surgery around where the cuts/plates are. i suppose that's not really something to complain about though/would be considered a complication right?

thanks for your time/thoughts everyone

[idkidkidk]

There is no point worrying about this. You've come out of surgery without any serious complications, and your open bite fixed. You look better. I would call that a success. Even if your problem could have been fixed with less invasive methods, there is nothing you can do about it. It happened. There is no point researching other treatment plans you could have gone through for an issue that is already fixed, that will just bring you down. All you can do is learn from this, taking this experience with trusting doctors into account if you ever have another medical issue requiring treatment.

The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to move on with your life, and stop worrying about this. If you find that you can't do that and this non-issue continues to bring you daily anxiety as you say, it is probably worth getting some other form of help.

[GJ]

Why did you make a new account to write about this?

Anyway, it sounds like your issue is one of feeling violated. Is that accurate? Like, you feel the doctor violated you because you didn't need to have this done and he went in there and did all this? Is that accurate? Maybe describe the mental hangup better. But if what I wrote is the case, go see a therapist and/or ask other surgeons if it was necessary. Maybe hearing it was necessary will put your mind at ease. Maybe a therapist can help if violation is the issue.

Most likely it was necessary, because open bites are highly unstable, and it's very unlikely TADs would fix that in any stable manner.

I could understand your reaction a lot better if you had complications or a bad result. As is, I don't really get it.

[chemtrail_lizard]

There is no point worrying about this. You've come out of surgery without any serious complications, and your open bite fixed. You look better. I would call that a success. Even if your problem could have been fixed with less invasive methods, there is nothing you can do about it. It happened. There is no point researching other treatment plans you could have gone through for an issue that is already fixed, that will just bring you down. All you can do is learn from this, taking this experience with trusting doctors into account if you ever have another medical issue requiring treatment.

The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to move on with your life, and stop worrying about this. If you find that you can't do that and this non-issue continues to bring you daily anxiety as you say, it is probably worth getting some other form of help.

thank you for this advice. i'm making it my new years resolution to stop dwelling over it/living in the past/researching the subject and jaw surgery in general - as you said, it's not helping and it has been basically crippling anxiety for the last 5 months straight due to obsessiveness. as the four year mark passed i began thinking/re-evaluating the experience and my life has been s**t ever since (though there were bouts of doubt post-op, but nothing like the last few months) i basically kept waking up feeling like i literally ruined my life over a decision that was completely up to me

the opinions on this thread are helping reinforce that it was probably for the best anyway, i really appreciate the input!

Why did you make a new account to write about this?

Anyway, it sounds like your issue is one of feeling violated. Is that accurate? Like, you feel the doctor violated you because you didn't need to have this done and he went in there and did all this? Is that accurate? Maybe describe the mental hangup better. But if what I wrote is the case, go see a therapist and/or ask other surgeons if it was necessary. Maybe hearing it was necessary will put your mind at ease. Maybe a therapist can help if violation is the issue.

Most likely it was necessary, because open bites are highly unstable, and it's very unlikely TADs would fix that in any stable manner.

I could understand your reaction a lot better if you had complications or a bad result. As is, I don't really get it.

good question GJ - i couldn't remember the email/password associated with the old account (plus i know if i logged in, i'd look at my old posts and probably dwell over them)

you hit the nail on the head with feeling violated. that's how i feel! both the orthodontists and surgeon seemed to downplay the surgery as being as big as it is to go through mentally/physically. it would have been nice to go through a mandatory psych evaluation beforehand. good thing i researched other peoples experiences - i wasn't really told what to expect after, how i would look/what would change/the REALITY of what could happen. they put it as 'you'll be fine! they do it all the time! etc' it probably has to do with trust issues i already have, and reading about how different doctors have different approaches and me being dumb and never getting third or fourth opinions before the surgery to really have that closure of knowing if it was the best option all things considered.
 
also the dentist who initially made a re-positioning splint to help with TMJ (directly prior to braces) i was told by a recent tmj specialist that he should never have let me wear the partial-coverage splint that only covered the front half of the upper arch. after the full coverage splint broke after about a month or two, i wore the half-splint for a little bit - hopefully not long enough to accentuate the bite issue. (research shows those kind of splints can make the uncovered teeth over-erupt, in my case the back teeth, which could open the bite more) that's honestly what worries me too - thinking that i took the wrong steps to fix the problem and that if i never wore the splint and just went straight to the ortho as step one, if my bite would have been the same or needed surgery to begin with. though i have had a few doctors say that the splint wouldn't have did what i think it did and that there was an obvious cant in the upper jaw visible on the xray, so that's at least positive

though in terms of having surgery, i do feel fortunate that it went well. there hasn't been a relapse and no serious complications.  i can continue my life, hopefully after this thread sinks in - a positive thing i'm taking from this thread too is that nobody is looking at the pictures and saying the surgery was unnecessary. that helps. its done and there is no going back even if i wanted to. i suppose i should focus on the good things that resulted and stop focusing on small non-issues and learn from it/apply it to other things as you put it GJ

[Lazlo]

hey everyone. i posted on here a while ago, and have since came back after having a lefort 1 to correct an open bite

i have so many concerns and anxieties from the surgery that rule my daily life, and constantly wonder whether i made the right choice by trusting my doctors at the time and having the jaw surgery

the worst part of it is that i didn't want to have the surgery in the first place, but felt like i was just doing what i had to do at the time - and even researched TADs and mentioned it to the ortho who didn't feel confident that it would be the best route to take because of the lack of research. then a few years go by and there's a ton more research and i feel like i missed out on a less invasive treatment that probably would have worked and it leaves me feeling a bit helpless that it is out of my control now and that i went through a traumatic surgery when i didn't have to.

the treatment started with a mouth guard because i had TMJD symptoms all the time, clicking/popping/locking, ear fullness, dulled hearing, ear infections semi frequently, and ringing in the ear (would get much louder when turning my head) one of my discs was displaced, and the joint was sitting higher up pretty much in the ear canal which the splint helped. then i had braces to fix the bite, and they said my case was borderline and felt like surgery would be the best option to take (they considered the TADs at the time too) i honestly was just following their opinion and i sort of feel like i shouldn't have. part of me questions whether the mouth guard made my bite worse to where i became a surgical case because for a short bit the dentist let me wear a partial coverage splint after it broke.

i was also a mouth breather, it was difficult to breathe through my nose and had bad quality of sleep and would wake up in drool

here are a bunch of photos from before/after and such
https://imgur.com/a/IJDPE

the surgeon said that the he can't guarantee the surgery would help but felt like it should(he specialized in tmj as well). luckily it did though. i don't have the issues i was having before mentioned above anymore, but feel like i could have alleviated those issues without surgery if i was informed enough on every treatment possibility

i wish that i had an obvious deformity or something that would have really made the surgery worthwhile. i feel like aside from the tmj problems i was having nobody really knew i had an issue with my bite. i don't even think my face looked too bad before to where the surgery would have made a drastic positive difference. it's been hard for me to feel positive and put it all behind me and move forward.

in terms of post-surgical issues, i can't really list many. i had an infection a year later that needed to be cleared out. the roof of my mouth has feeling everywhere but might be less ticklish than it used to be/slightly more dull. that's about it though

what do you guys think? do you think the surgery was a good option in my case? or do you think my judgement is fair in that it was a bit too extreme?

this guy, omg you look great bro. get on an SSRI like Lexapro or Zoloft pronto ---you need that s**t you have OCD upp the rumpus

[chemtrail_lizard]

this guy, omg you look great bro. get on an SSRI like Lexapro or Zoloft pronto ---you need that s**t you have OCD upp the rumpus

LAZLO i miss you brodie. you were always so kind and positive towards everyone and me when i had an initial freak out after the surgery. it's good that you can notice a pattern of OCD just from reading the post because i definitely had it throughout life, and was worried pre-op that i would OCD afterward (AND IT HAPPENED)

now i wonder if my concerns are justified or are more or less related to OCD/depression after you pointed that out

i missed thanksgiving this year because the dwelling was so bad and my family was concerned i admitted myself into a psych hospital for 4 days (long story, it was a nightmare and a mistake and didn't help aside from not being on the internet)

its a new year and this situation is feeling closer to finally being put behind me thanks to the reinforcement from you guys. i don't want to still feel this way 10 years from now. life is too short

[Lazlo]

LAZLO i miss you brodie. you were always so kind and positive towards everyone and me when i had an initial freak out after the surgery. it's good that you can notice a pattern of OCD just from reading the post because i definitely had it throughout life, and was worried pre-op that i would OCD afterward (AND IT HAPPENED)

now i wonder if my concerns are justified or are more or less related to OCD/depression after you pointed that out

i missed thanksgiving this year because the dwelling was so bad and my family was concerned i admitted myself into a psych hospital for 4 days (long story, it was a nightmare and a mistake and didn't help aside from not being on the internet)

its a new year and this situation is feeling closer to finally being put behind me thanks to the reinforcement from you guys. i don't want to still feel this way 10 years from now. life is too short

go to any doc, talk about your concers centred around anxiety and your appearance get on lexapro aAND/OR Zoloft or Effexor --it'll take a few months, may need to combine them, everything in your life will be better EVERYTHING. These are smart drugs. Not medicine.