I finally got my braces taken out after almost a year. Not a moment too soon :)
I still have a mouth piece I need to wear to keep my teeth from moving out of their new places, but basically everything is in place now and I think it's fair to say that the recovery is 100% complete.
Now to be honest, I considered the surgery recovery complete after I had fully recovered feeling to my chin (that was after a bit less than 6 months), but with the braces out, it's now 100% complete.
I was also recently asked how long it took me to recover from MMA surgery right after the surgery itself.
Basically, it went as such:
I was mentally able to work after about 2 weeks (at that point, I didn't have to take the drugs which required me to rest every so often, anymore). I was however able to work most of the day after the first week, I just was a bit drugged up and still needed more frequent naps.
3 weeks after surgery, I acted as pilot in command of a plane I flew to Edwards airforce base (as private pilot, that was not for work). Doing the radio calls was actually the hardest since talking was still a bit difficult/painful with the mouth still mostly shut with rubber bands.
3 weeks is also when I started cheating a bit more and eating soft foods (that was slightly premature and I wasn't quite supposed to do it but things like quiche worked fine).
By then, outside of it being difficult and somewhat painful to talk for more than a few minutes, I was otherwise fully able to do anything I wanted (outside of things like running which would shake my jaws).
After 5 weeks is when The rubber bands came out. I gave a 1H talk at a linux conference in Boston just after that. It was a bit hard, but I made it.
By then, I could eat pretty much anything I wanted outside of stuff like breaking hard chocolate with my jaw, or other kinds of hard caramel/candy.
That's about it.
As for how well did it work, well it did help. Unfortunately I was one of the few cases for whom apnea didn't fully go away after the surgery, despite a very successful surgery. It kind of sucks, but at least my sleep is better now (even if not perfect). |