Jaw surgery how long wired shut

Brush thoroughly after meals and before bed with a child-sized soft toothbrush. You must do this as thoroughly as possible. You will not be able to brush the tongue side of your teeth with a brush.

The tongue side of the teeth can be brushed by moving your tongue across them while using a mouth rinse. Use wax to cover wires or hooks that may be causing discomfort, such as poking your cheeks, lips, or gums. Do this by using a very small piece to cover the wire or hook at the site of discomfort. Remove the wax before brushing teeth and eating or drinking. Depending on the type of surgery, it may have been necessary to make an incision on your skin or to repair lacerations or wounds associated with your injury.

Care of these wounds is important to prevent infection and minimize scarring. Keep wounds covered with a dressing. Once the stitches are removed, keep the wound clean by gently washing twice a day and applying a topical antibiotic ointment Bacitracin, etc. For the first 6 months, avoid excessive sun exposure to your scar — apply sunblock and wear a brimmed hat.

Do not cut, remove, bend, or twist wires! If wires or braces begin to irritate cheeks or lips, a small piece of wax can be placed over these sharp areas temporarily. Point out these spots during your next office visit.

Loose wires may compromise or delay healing or result in fracture healing improperly. Call the office if you can open your mouth or move your jaws! Remember, the wires or rubber bands can be stretched or broken, causing the problems noted above, or teeth can be loosened and damaged. If you need to cough, sneeze, or yawn, use your hand to support below your chin to avoid the tendency to try to open your mouth!

Frequent office visits and periodic post-operative X-rays are necessary to ensure healing. Please keep all of your scheduled appointments. If any problem arises, such as a shifting of your bite, loose wires, fever, excessive swelling, bleeding, or vomiting, call our office at An orthodontist can place braces on your teeth and then attach surgical hooks to the brackets.

During your jaw surgery, your doctor will use small wire loops around the surgical hooks which will keep your teeth together. Instead of wire, some doctors may use elastic rubber bands around the surgical hooks. If your doctor doesn't want to place braces on your teeth, then he or she may use ivy loops.

These ivy loops are wrapped around the teeth themselves without an orthodontic archwire or brackets. Lastly, for more stabilization, a doctor may recommend screw-retained arch bars. Your doctor would use an arch bar that's screwed into the bone which then can support external loop wires to hold the jaw shut during healing.

Jaw wiring isn't painful. Your doctor will wire your teeth together while you are still under general anesthesia. Plus, during recovery, you may actually experience post-operative numbness because a lot of the nerves in the lips, chin, and gums may still need to heal.

In short, while some soreness is expected after major jaw surgery, the jaw wiring itself shouldn't add to your pain.

The most challenging part of recovery may be getting adequate nutrition. You'll need to have protein shakes, soups, and other liquid-based foods. Your doctor will give you a syringe so that you can take in liquids and mashed foods between your teeth.

Your doctor will give you wire cutters in case of an emergency. If you need to cut your wires for some reason, your doctor can easily rewire your teeth again during an office appointment. Complete healing from surgery takes about twelve weeks, but the initial healing takes about six, so you may be able to get the wires off sooner if your x-rays show good healing. This includes an oral dose the evening prior to surgery followed by intravenous dosing in the operating room and post-operatively while in the hospital.

The amount of swelling will vary from patient to patient. Typically after two weeks it is vastly improved and by four to six weeks it is 90 percent resolved. It may take up to six months for the last 10 percent of swelling to resolve, though this is typically only noticed by the patient and close family. The incidence of infection following orthognathic or jaw surgery is very low.

In the literature, the incidence is reported to be between 6 and 15 percent. These figures are high, in our opinion. When it occurs, the infection is easily treated with antibiotics and drainage with minimal discomfort and no long-term effects. During jaw surgery, we utilize high-dose perioperative intravenous antibiotics for prophylaxis to prevent infection. Meticulous surgical technique and accomplishing the surgery in an efficient manner will also reduce infection rates.

Occasionally, if bone grafts are utilized during surgery, we will continue the antibiotic therapy for seven to ten days orally after discharge. Our patients are also sent home with an antibacterial mouth rinse to help keep the wounds clean and are instructed on meticulous oral hygiene practices.

Proper oral hygiene post-operatively is important in reducing the bacterial load in the mouth and adjacent to the surgical wounds.

Following an orthognathic surgery, we have patients return for numerous postoperative visits in order to ensure proper healing. We typically see patients at one week, four weeks, six weeks, and 12 weeks following surgery.

We also see the patient back at the six-month and month intervals once the orthodontic therapy is complete and the braces have been removed. A final set of records is obtained at that time. Close post-operative follow-up is important in order to catch any possible complications early as well as to ensure the proper bite and jaw position has been obtained and is stable.

JRA stands for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It is very different from the adult form. It is often a diagnosis of exclusion meaning all other diagnoses are ruled out. It can involve the temporomandibular joints. If so, management typically involves a team approach not only including the oral and maxillofacial surgeon and orthodontist, but rheumatologist and other physicians as well. When it affects the temporomandibular joints JRA can lead to limited opening and malocclusion or a bad bite and misaligned jaws.

It is often managed with newer medications typically guided by the rheumatologist. If the disease remains stable, then surgical correction of the bite can be undertaken by the surgeon and orthodontist with traditional orthognathic surgery. If the disease remains active and refractory to medical management, then total joint replacement of the temporomandibular joints may be necessary. The patient usually undergoes several surgeries in the area of the cleft at an early age.

Because of this early surgery, the normal growth pattern of the maxilla can be restricted. It is often necessary to advance the upper jaw when the patient is in the mid to late teens.

This can be completed in a single surgery and may also be combined with a lower jaw or mandibular surgery. At times, if the movement is too large to complete in a single surgery, a procedure called distraction osteogenesis may be undertaken to reposition the jaw.

This procedure grows the jaw over a period of weeks to achieve the desired position. It is typically reserved for very large discrepancies. Distraction osteogenesis of the jaws is based on the Ilizarov leg lengthening procedure. In many ways, it is more successful and reliable in the head and neck region versus the extremities because of the ample blood supply found in the head and neck.

There was a period in the s and s when doctors wired shut the jaws of people for up to a year to help them lose weight. People did lose weight initially when their jaws were wired shut, comparable to those who received bariatric surgery , but many of them regained the weight after doctors removed the jaw wires. Your doctor will wire your jaw together to stabilize the mouth and prevent the jaw joint from moving following surgery.

Your doctor will attach bars to your upper and lower gums in the front and back of your mouth. These will hold the wires or elastics in place to keep your jaw shut.

Jaw surgeries are generally done as in-patient surgery with some form of anesthesia. Your doctor may wire your jaw immediately following surgery or wait a day or two to add the wires or elastics to your mouth. Recovery time depends on the extent of your injury or surgery, as well as your overall health, and other variables. You should not experience pain during the procedure because of anesthetics.

Your doctor may prescribe a pain reliever to use following your surgery. You may experience swelling following the surgery as well. Your doctor will likely remove the jaw wiring after six weeks if your jaw has healed.

Removal is generally done as an outpatient procedure. Meeting your nutritional needs is one of the biggest challenges of jaw wiring. Proper nutrition will help your bones heal so you can recover faster. This will involve more meal planning and preparation than you may be used to. You need to make sure that the liquid meals you consume are thin enough to pass through your jaw wiring, with large chunks strained out. Cook foods before blending them so they puree easily.

You may want to add milk, broths, or other liquids when blending foods to make them thin enough. Here are some ideas to help you get enough nutrition and keep your food interesting. Smoothies are versatile and can be enjoyed at any time of day.