Chin muscle repair after genioplasty

[Lazlo]

i too have stiffness, not at the lip, that's just loss of sensation, but on the right side of the muscle covering the chin, feels heavy and i can really feel it pull when i stretch my mouth. f**k I'd give it a shot with the Indian guy. It would be amazing to fix this.

[PloskoPlus]

My upper was like this for a long time on one side, now it just has this "diffuse numbness", which feels like it's burnt. I think what you have is the aftermath of severe nerve trauma or as my fat old butcher told me "it's just numbness". Nerve trauma can manifest itself in all sorts of ways.  Some are completely numb, many a little, and a few, like us, get this abhorrent paraesthesia instead.

[Dogmatix]

The problem as I’m trying my best to lay it out, is that it may not be nerve damage. I DO have nerve damage but it’s not really a bother. It’s the stiffness that’s a bother. Nowhere in the literature does it mention this as a symptom.

So let’s say my nerves do recover eventually, that doesn’t mean the stiffness will go away. Richardson believes they are separate problems.

He made it clear before I got the hardware removed that it wouldn’t help my main problem, but may or may not relieve the numbness some.

If it's a separate problem, it needs to be explained in some way what the problem is if it's not the nerves. I understand that there can be a distinction between nerves for sensation and mobility, but it's still nerves. And nerves for mobility is definitely cut during jaw surgery as well, if you see people coming out of jaw surgery, it's not just that they can't feel, they can't move or make facial expressions either.

If it's not the nerves, I guess it have to be that the muscle is cut. That also heals, but if it's big enough there might be some intervention to reattach it. Muscles break in other context in the body, it can happen when lifting something heavy, or the achilles tendon can break when running. The intervention to fix the achilles tendon is normally to let it grow back naturally and then stretch it. So even muscles heal. If something is really cut off, it's subject to necrosis and death.

[ODog]

i too have stiffness, not at the lip, that's just loss of sensation, but on the right side of the muscle covering the chin, feels heavy and i can really feel it pull when i stretch my mouth. f**k I'd give it a shot with the Indian guy. It would be amazing to fix this.

That’s interesting, I’m astonished it doesn’t affect your speech.

[ODog]

If it's a separate problem, it needs to be explained in some way what the problem is if it's not the nerves. I understand that there can be a distinction between nerves for sensation and mobility, but it's still nerves. And nerves for mobility is definitely cut during jaw surgery as well, if you see people coming out of jaw surgery, it's not just that they can't feel, they can't move or make facial expressions either.

If it's not the nerves, I guess it have to be that the muscle is cut. That also heals, but if it's big enough there might be some intervention to reattach it. Muscles break in other context in the body, it can happen when lifting something heavy, or the achilles tendon can break when running. The intervention to fix the achilles tendon is normally to let it grow back naturally and then stretch it. So even muscles heal. If something is really cut off, it's subject to necrosis and death.

That has nothing to do with the motor nerves being cut. The muscle tissues have been cut so that’s why you can’t make facial expressions. Also you have incisions everywhere in your mouth and so making a facial expression would pull at the stitches. Everything is also swollen profusely. Swollen tissue Is filled with water and makes movement difficult - temporarily.

[ODog]

My upper was like this for a long time on one side, now it just has this "diffuse numbness", which feels like it's burnt. I think what you have is the aftermath of severe nerve trauma or as my fat old butcher told me "it's just numbness". Nerve trauma can manifest itself in all sorts of ways.  Some are completely numb, many a little, and a few, like us, get this abhorrent paraesthesia instead.

It’s hard to say is your feeling of stiffness is what I’m referring to when I say stiff. Another word I use is frozen. My lip feels fat in the middle when I move it even just a little, like something is bunching up under the lip and pulling. When I speak for longer than a few sentences I start to notice it’s lack of mobility and it occupies my attention and becomes bothersome. Is that what you had?

Because I know people who have this issue still almost 3 years post-op. Does that mean you both had the same symptom? Or are you using the same words to describe different phenomenon? I don’t know.

Because I guess I also have some stiffness in my upper lip still from the surgery. But it’s not something I notice in day to day life or that’s impairing in any way. Certainly not enough to make a stink about it. I also have TMJ problems in one jaw and barely even mentioned it to my surgeon. So you can imagine it’s a pretty distressing problem if I’m still going on about it at 8 months post op.

Does anyone know if relocating the nerve from the bony canal during surgery is a normal procedure? Because I’d bet this is where it got so severely damaged.

I guess my surgeon wasn’t so good afterall.