I'm 10 days post-op from a Le Fort 1 in which my upper jaw was just moved upwards. The surgery was covered by my insurance as medically necessary although I felt I had little functional problems except lip incompetence and mild clicking in my jaw when I opened it and exaggerated sliding it side to side. I had no pain when chewing or swallowing and I had been told by several professionals my bite was petty good. I mainly did the surgery for aesthetic reasons.
I am happy with how I look and my lip incompetence seems much better. Unfortunately, when I close my mouth, the only point of contact I feel is my back left molar. I feel no contact on my right side at all. Swallowing causes a dull to sometimes sharp ache in my upper left jaw. When I try to do the jaw exercises prescribed (moving jaw sideways and forward) it takes less movement to cause clicking than pre-surgery.
The main surgeon told my husband in the post-op call that everything went "picture perfect". However, the assisting surgeon, who discharged me the morning after, told me they had trouble lining up the jaw and had to go back a couple of times to even things out.
I haven't seen either my surgeon or my orthodontist yet. I will see both on Tuesday (my appointments got pushed out because of Thanksgiving). I'm trying not to freak out until I have my follow-ups, but I have an increasingly sinking feeling in my stomach that things went quite poorly.
Any advice on what questions to ask the surgeon/ortho when I see them? Does this sound like something that can be fixed with braces? I was hoping to have no orthodontic work done in conjecture with the surgery, but now I would happily go that route to get my bite back to where it was. I'm terrified I'll either be brushed off by my doctors or be told I need another surgery to fix this.
Not sure what advice can be offered but thanks for reading through this.