Why I decided to get Double Jaw Surgery
Since high school, plastic surgery has always been in a mind. The reason was because of my lantern jaw and extreme asymmetrical face. A lantern jaw is when your lower jaw sticks out further than your upper jaw, giving your face a long, lean and gaunt appearance. Mine was pretty severe. And for this reason, my appearance has always been the biggest insecurity of my life. After years of research about double jaw surgery, on the day I turned 19, I didn't hesitate a second to get surgery done!
This is a picture of me before surgery. You can obviously tell that I had a very asymmetrical face. When people would first see me, they would get a poor first impression of me and told me that I was hard to approach. I didn't like my small eyes either. I would especially notice how small they are when I take photos, because they always looked half closed- making me look sleepy.
My double jaw condition was quite serious that the hospital told me if it was just 0.3mm more distorted, my surgery would have been covered by insurance. I visited many hospitals for consultations including huge university hospitals. But at the end I decided to go with ID hospital.
After discussing with my parents I decided to get the “surgery-first approach” orthognothic surgery. And since I was getting surgery anyway, I decided to go ahead and get ptosis correction surgery as well to fix my sleepy eyes.
My eyes always looked half closed making me looking sleepy all the time
before going into surgery
The whole surgery took about 6 hours. But for me, it didn’t feel like 6 hours. Right before surgery I was telling my Doctors to take good care of me. Then all I remember is falling asleep and waking up in the recovery room. It’s amazing what anesthesia can do haha
After Surgery
When I woke up from surgery, I still had anesthesia in my system so I wasn't able to have complete free range of motion. It was impossible to breathe through my nose. At that moment, I was in great discomfort. But now that I look back at it, I think it was bearable. The hardest part for me was that the respiratory I was breathing through was causing dryness in my mouth and throat. This made me really thirsty. But when the nurses saw me struggle, they brought me a humidifier which made me feel a little better after.
right after surgery
This is a photo of me right after I got discharged! You can tell that I was very swollen. I was really hungry as well because I have been fasting for hours. The hospital provided me with a liquid shake and consuming it helped my hunger go down. The nurses were very helpful throughout my recovery right after surgery. Also one more thing, I usually sleep on my side, but after surgery I wasn’t able to. That was quite difficult for me because it hurt my back during the night.
Photo of me two months post operation. Swelling has gone down a lot in this photo
6 months post operation
7 months post operation
Overall
I’m sharing my experience with everyone because prior to my surgery, the reviews I read were very helpful and gave me more insight of the surgical process and assurance in my decision to get surgery. Since this is a huge operation, you really need to be careful on who you choose as your surgeon. I hope my experience can help others find the courage to go through what I did and experience a new life through it. Good luck.
before surgery at ID hospital
after surgery at ID hospital
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