As of today, it has been 28 days since the surgery, so 4 weeks have passed. I’ll leave a 1-month review.
For the first two weeks after surgery, time felt painfully slow, but from then until the 1-month mark it flew by. Until week 2, I could see my face changing every day, and I also went on walks every day to reduce swelling. But after I hit day 14, the swelling went down faster than I expected, and because I started working and getting back to daily life, I slackened off on walking, lol.. So during weeks 3 to 4, it didn’t feel like there were dramatic changes.
Still, yesterday and today don’t look very different, but if I compare them with about 3 or 4 days ago, I think, oh? It’s already gone down that much? Since they said major swelling is highly individual but usually lasts about 2 months on average, I’m looking forward to the next month! I kept drinking Yeo-u tea. But honestly, what felt most effective for swelling was just walking. On days when I didn’t walk, even if I drank swelling tea, the swelling only went down about 0.3... 0.4... in a day, whereas on days I went for a walk, it suddenly dropped by 1! 1.3! that day. Rather than spending money on swelling products, I think “eat less salty food + walk every day” is the most effective.
Also, my face in the morning and my face in the evening are completely different! (I was always someone who swells easily in the morning anyway.) When I wake up, it’s almost like, “Huh? Did I go back to the swelling from week 2?” but when I look in the mirror in the evening, my face looks the most refined it has been since surgery. I’ve been repeating this every day throughout weeks 3 and 4, and I can see that both morning swelling and evening swelling are getting very slightly less than the day before!
+ One thing I forgot to write in my previous post: after discharge and coming home from the hospital, I did not sleep in a bed for 2 weeks (14 days). Where did I sleep? In a camping chair. I slept in a roomy camping chair tilted a little more than 45 degrees, with a neck pillow and a blanket. Because I did that, maybe the swelling went down faster?? When I moved to the bed from day 15, I was swollen like crazy in the mornings, T_T. I’m the type who can sleep straight if I pay attention, so I didn’t buy a special post-op pillow and just used a neck pillow I already had at home. But I didn’t put the neck pillow around my neck; I know this may be hard to picture, but I lay on my usual pillow and wore the neck pillow on the top of my head like a headband. Since I have a lot of cushions, if I place cushions all around the pillow in that state, the neck pillow gets loosely fixed by friction. As long as I didn’t move around too much, the side parts of the neck pillow held my temples so my cheekbones weren’t pressed and I could sleep on my back.
Now... shall we talk about brushing teeth + food? haha T_T
At the beginning of week 3 (the few days right after the stitches inside my mouth were removed on day 14), I couldn’t chew right away, just as I said in the previous post. Later I realized it wasn’t simply because I hadn’t chewed for 2 weeks or because the bones hadn’t fused yet. Rather, the gums around the incision site, from behind the canines to the molars, had no sensation, as if they were numb! Maybe the anesthetic hadn’t worn off yet? Or maybe the gums were like the facial skin, where sensation just hadn’t come back yet? I’m not sure. Anyway, because I had no sensation, I couldn’t really tell how hard to chew. Since I might chew hard without realizing it, I was careful and ended up chewing in tiny little nibbles. People around me said I looked like an old grandma, lol.
Once the stitches come out, brushing your teeth finally becomes possible!! At first, I couldn’t open my mouth well, and the skin near my lips was still very stiff, so cleaning every corner was harder than I expected. I brushed with the molar toothbrush I usually use. Then after a few days, as the swelling went down a bit more, my lips became more flexible, so I switched to a regular toothbrush. But maybe I tried too hard to scrub off built-up grime while my gums still had no sensation... As the sensation slowly returned after I changed to a regular toothbrush, it started stinging, and my molar-side gums had become raw... I brushed gently for 3 days and it healed. At 1 month now, all gum sensation has come back! You should just buy something like a children’s toothbrush and brush gently, haha.
I saw a lot of people saying they lost a lot of weight because they couldn’t eat after contour surgery, but I lost 3 kg during the first 2 weeks and by now, at the 1-month mark, it’s all come back, hahaha. But I think the food I ate also had an effect... The hospital said no hard or chewy foods like rice cakes or meat. I understood meat, but rice cakes... aren’t they soft? Once I thought about that, I really didn’t know what I was supposed to eat. So in the end, what I ate most was ramen and cup noodles. Tasty + filling + reasonably easy to chew...
Below, I’ll write down as many of the foods I remember as I can!
+ As soon as I started chewing, bits of food got stuck everywhere. There are no stitches, but it felt like food was stuck between my teeth/gums and my lips. But because moving my mouth was uncomfortable, I couldn’t just use my tongue to flexibly scrape it out like before surgery. I had to gargle to get it out.
[Food menu] # Ottogi pollock-soup cubes - The dried pollock was tougher than I expected, so I couldn’t chew it and just put rice into the soup and ate it that way. (Sometimes bones came out, so be careful T_T) # Eat rice mixed into thoroughly boiled napa cabbage soup # Button mushroom soup / corn soup - I chopped the mushrooms small, chewed them roughly, and swallowed them; I also chewed the corn kernels roughly and swallowed them, and tore the bread into small pieces, soaked it in the soup, and ate it soft # Soak cereal in milk or yogurt until it gets soggy # Pulmuone anchovy rice noodles - tasty, generous portion, and more like banquet noodles than rice noodles. At the beginning of week 3, even this was hard to chew, but little by little I could chew it. (Various other cup noodles too, like cheese bokki, spicy pepper cream bokki, etc... Udon-type noodles were tougher than I expected because they were chewy T_T. Even noodles like Cup Noodle I cut into small pieces with scissors, but they were springy so it was hard...) # Boiled eggs - I mashed them into a size I could chew at the time and mixed them with Buldak mayo sauce # Seaweed + rice + Buldak mayo - Put a small amount of rice into the seaweed, roll it into a long flattened shape instead of a round one, and dip it into Buldak mayo # Snacks - cream cheese, ice cream, Eclipse, Choco Pie (microwave for 20 seconds and pour about 4 spoonfuls of lactose-free milk over it; milk is essential or it hardens quickly), tiramisu, banana milk, Costco crepe roll cake, Birak sujeonggwa, Green Plum drink (as of the 1-month mark, I can chew something like corn chips, haha) # Sulbing - Only the soft parts, excluding hard toppings # Fruit - strawberries, kiwi, mango, etc., mashed roughly with a fork and eaten (I’m tired of bananas...) # Malatang - Of course I couldn’t eat it like usual; I only picked ingredients that seemed chewable. In order from easiest to chew: white jelly fungus > black wood ear fungus > Korean starch noodles (soaked a bit) > tofu skin (but even tofu skin was a bit chewy even when cut into bite-size pieces, so I think it should be chopped very finely and eaten with the broth) *Everything else was too hard # Pasta cooked fully soft (based on spaghetti noodles) # Freshly fried, not-yet-hardened French fries # Bibimbap - gochujang + sesame oil + rice (+ ketchup) # Steamed egg - In a microwave-safe bowl, beat 3 to 4 eggs smoothly, add one spoonful of ramen seasoning powder, and stir while pouring in hot water. Microwave for 4 to 5 minutes while checking the cooking status. Add cheddar cheese if you like # Makeshift tteokbokki - I really wanted tteokbokki. But because rice cakes were forbidden and I’ve always liked the sauce more than the rice cakes anyway, I just melted mozzarella cheese into tteokbokki sauce and ate that! (Caution: once mozzarella cools, it becomes chewy in real time, so I don’t recommend it T_T. Otherwise you have to keep reheating it in the microwave while eating.)
I kept rotating through those foods. These days I eat a bit faster, but in the beginning it felt like it took about 3 hours to finish one cup of ramen lol. It was almost like I was digesting while eating... so I ended up eating all day long.
If you want to diet at the same time, I recommend buying things like protein powder without bits, Greek yogurt, low-sugar ice cream, and zero-calorie drinks in advance. Since I had nothing at home I could actually eat, I kept going to the supermarket or convenience store to buy ramen... If you want to diet, I recommend focusing on recovery for the first 2 weeks and starting no earlier than week 3. If you want to minimize side effects, recovery has to come first!
In week 3, as my tongue gradually became freer (before that, I couldn’t move my mouth properly, so it was hard to use my tongue), I checked the scar area inside my mouth and it felt very bumpy. There was no pain. But at the 1-month mark now, it’s much smoother. There probably still isn’t enough tissue filled in yet, so I’ll have to wait longer.
I think I’ve written down most of what I remember, but as for my condition otherwise: - Not often, but once in a while I get a left-sided migraine only. It’s a throbbing, stabbing feeling, but it doesn’t last very long or get unbearably painful. - My lips and the chin area just below my lips still hurt when touched. (Not the bone, the flesh.) So I’m being gentle when washing my face or applying skincare. - I can finally do the lip motion? The kind where you press your lips together and puff? Anyway, I couldn’t do it before, but it’s starting to work. My lips still don’t have balanced strength, so it feels awkward. - In week 3 I went out wearing a mask, and in week 4 I went around wearing makeup and no mask. At a glance I just look like someone who gained some face fat, haha. My facial expressions are still very awkward. - Now at 1 month, I really like the shape! My under-chin protrusion that made people think I had a prognathic jaw has improved so much that people around me ask if I had double-jaw surgery instead of contour surgery -> because of that, my side profile looks much better. My nose was also small and low, so it used to be on almost the same line as my chin, but now my midface has more dimensionality. - I originally planned to have nose surgery right after contour surgery later on, but now that my face line has been cleaned up and my face looks smaller, my features look more distinct relatively. + A friend asked if I had done contouring and nose surgery together. So I’m thinking a bit more about the nose now... I also haven’t found the shape I want yet. - After I started sleeping in the bed in week 3, my cheeks, chin, and mouth area were so stiff and swollen that, unlike before when I slept lying down in bed, I ended up sleeping with my mouth open. By the end of week 4, I’m back to sleeping with my mouth closed. - Since the pressure bandage was removed on day 14, I still haven’t worn it even once. (I thought blood should circulate for circulation and swelling reduction!) - I asked the hospital about going to the gym, and they said I shouldn’t put force on my face until 4 months after surgery, so weight training is not allowed. (Light exercise is okay, they said. But I don’t have much muscle, so even light exercise makes me strain my face a lot... haha. I guess I’ll at least do some casual squats.) - The sideburn area still hurts if I press on it with my hand. It is getting better little by little.
That’s really it! I’ll be back with a 2-month review. I’m looking forward to it!!