As for the surgery – when jaw advancement is done for the reason they are doing it with me – the success is a virtual 100% – that is breathing is improved in well over 90% of the cases I think it was like 99%. The harder question to answer is how much the breathing is improved. In cases where it is done to remove CPAP as a treatment – they usually get well over 80% improvement in the quality of breathing – so if you know CPAP numbers – someone with a 100 count will be down to around 20.
The general the response I am hearing and seeing online and elsewhere is that people wish they had done this treatment sooner. It is a quality of life thing. I have always been a mouth breather, and the hope is that post surgery, it will be easier to breath and that I might be able to breath through my nose better.
Obviously visually people look different post surgery – general consensus is that people like their new look as they have a more pronounced jaw. I was told based on scans etc that my jaw recedes – that it sits back farther than average. So my oral surgeon told me that part of my problem is genetics. I also have two other issues that I was not fully aware of. I knew I had a jaw injury back in grade 9 trying out for my High School hockey team. A guy that I was not very fond of to begin with took me into the boards with his elbow up and caused damage. Well after so many years, I can’t prove it was that incident, but my doctor told me that I broke/dislocated my jaw at some point back when. That was new info for me. Given that is the only jaw injury I can remember – I figure that was when it happened. I just remember not being able to play for a couple of weeks and asking my Mom for liquid because my jaw was too sore to chew. Of course I didn’t make the team after that – can’t qualify if you don’t play. I also have been told that I have a deviated septum – they figure at some point I broke my nose. So all of that together makes for a mess.
So to fix all of that the more detailed plan is as follows:
-
- do what they can to fix the septum
- carve out some of the bone at the base of the nostrils to open the airway through the nose. They originally talked about removing one of the bones in each nostril, now they are just going to carve them a bit.
- move the jaw forward – the focal point of the surgery
- when moving the jaw forward they are going to adjust the alignment – apparently my jaw sits off center
- also when moving it forward the plan is to adjust the angle that my mouth opens relative to the rest of my face by carving the top part of the bone of my upper jaw
So, it sounds like a lot. However, I am just looking forward to the potential benefits – to have improved breathing ability!!