Hi all,
Thought I would share my experience with Dr. Antipov last week. Had a consultation for possible jaw surgery. Would love to get other people's experience visiting him as well.
Office is located at a pretty random location, about 20 miles outside Sacramento. Seems to have good technology. Dr. Antipov himself was a nice guy (though pretty quiet). That said, something just seemed......off. Almost like I was in an episode of Twin Peaks or Twilight Zone. Everything related to the office was Russian. Now, I don't mean that in itself to be negative (I myself am part Latvian), but everyone that worked there was Russian, everyone speaking there only spoke Russian, all the reading material in the waiting room was Russian, and every other patient there was also Russian. I felt like I was getting looks being the only non-Russian person there. Just felt weird.
I brought my own imaging (CT). An assistant surgeon took the imaging, copied them to a computer and lined them up so Dr. Antipov could be ready for them. When Dr. Antipov stepped in, he said hi and immediately just sat down at the computer. This is when things kinda got weird again. After sitting down, he immediately just started morphing my face, saying I definitely needed jaw surgery, showed the movements and said what the surgery entailed. Almost plastic surgeony. No oral examination, and no questions about history/bite/etc. I basically had to voluntarily start talking about bite history, implants and all that. I've never experienced that before with an oral/maxiofacial surgeon. They usually at least briefly do an examination. Maybe cause of Covid? Also, the only before/afters he has are the same one on his website, which makes me kinda question how often he actually does the surgery versus just doing consultations (which he charges 500 for).
Anyway, after about 30 minutes, told me to think about it, but said i should really do it. I submitted insurance verification just in case. Have a ton of imaging done alongside the ceph/ct which will be good to have now for reference.
His recommendation is 10mm forward upper and lower. One thing I found interesting is that he says BSSO alone you can increase widths pretty substantially if wanted, basically by creating a bigger and bigger gap between where the bones are cut horizontally. He just says it would take longer for the bone to heal since there are now massive spaces.
Anyway, back to where I was about a year ago trying to figure out if I should just go for it. In my early 30's, so it's now or never.
Imaging:
https://imgur.com/a/HBFy2KDNote: Check out the boney overgrowth I now have cause of the implants. Word of warning for those who consider them.