Day-of-surgery to Day 7 review of type-1 square jaw surgery

I’m posting this because there are hardly any reviews from people who only had type-1 square jaw surgery. It’s been a little over 3 weeks, almost a month now, and at this point I still can’t really say whether I recommend it or not in a dramatic way. That said, I think some people also worry that doing only type 1 might not have any effect at all, but that wasn’t the case for me. My swelling is still so puffy that I can’t say I look dramatically different from before surgery, but the angular parts were definitely softened and replaced by puffiness insteadㅎ Since the angles are gone, I’m just puffy now, so no one can tell I had surgeryㅎ During my swelling-anxiety phase I think I read almost every swelling review out there, and a lot of people seem pretty satisfied from the 2-month mark onward, so I think I’ll need to keep watching for now!\r\nDay of surgery to Week 1\r\n- The pain was pretty severe, and I actually experienced what people call swelling anxiety. I had no social life or daily routine to speak of; I was just lying in my room in pain, staring at the mirror the whole time, which is probably why. I think I searched through at least several thousand reviews during this period.\r\n- I recommend the Daiso sauce containers! I’ve never put porridge in them before, but I thought they might get clogged, so I used them for drinking yogurt, or when I couldn’t brush my teeth, I used them like a water flosser for gargling.\r\n- Strongly recommend Noblue Gel! It didn’t seem to do much for brown bruises, but it visibly helped with purple and yellow bruising. The swelling just kept getting worse, but at least it’s nice to get some amusement out of the bruises fading.\r\n- I didn’t buy any separate anti-swelling medicine during the first week, but I think it would have been fine to start earlier. I recommend Tripline and Bruna.\r\n- Most importantly, if you can’t take painkillers or can’t get an IV pain pump, please seriously reconsider surgery...\r\nDay of surgery\r\n- Since the day before, I kept wondering over and over whether I should run away. The before-and-after photos in the reviews were so intense that I wanted to escape, but I decided to trust the coordinator’s claim that type 1 doesn’t swell much and doesn’t hurt much, and go ahead even if I could barely eat. I fasted for about 14 hours and went in, but I was so scared that I barely noticed being hungry. The reviews said the consultation on the day of surgery was very detailed, but honestly I didn’t feel that at all.. The coordinator only told me that type-1 square jaw surgery is a simple procedure, so I accepted that, but actually even during the design stage the main thing I wanted was asymmetry correction, and the discussion focused mostly on how that might be difficult, so I was a little uneasy. I arrived a bit early and lay down in the ward, then went into the operating room. Since I couldn’t get the IV pain pump due to my constitution, I searched to see whether there were cases of surgery without one, but nothing came up, which made me shake with fear. At that time the coordinator said someone had surgery without the pain pump just the previous week and that it happens fairly often, so I decided to go forward on that basis alone. People say many patients get tense when their arms and legs are tied to the operating table, but I was already trembling before they even tied me down. Unlike being put to sleep with gas, the moment I got the injection I felt tingling from my fingertips and toes, and then I lost consciousness.\r\n- When I came to, the nurses were telling me to exhale deeply. I couldn’t breathe well, so I kept saying I couldn’t breathe, but I don’t know if that was the kind of nonsense people say while waking from anesthesia. Still, it felt like something was stuck in my throat and I couldn’t breathe. They said I’d wake from anesthesia around 6 and could drink water around 10, but water wasn’t the real problem. I couldn’t breathe, my oxygen saturation kept dropping, and even when I gasped for air, bloody phlegm would come up and get stuck. My jaw hurt like I had been hit by a truck, and the pain was so severe that I scraped the wall over and over until wallpaper got stuck all under my nails. (Later, when my friend came as my guardian, they saw that many people had done the same, and the nail marks were apparently no joke.) I honestly resented the coordinator who said I could do it without pain control. If you’re reading this, never. Ever. have surgery without the pain pump... It was a night from hell. I was in so much pain that I actually cried, and then a nurse got a prescription and gave me a single painkiller injection, after which I felt a little more alive. For those who can get the pain pump or pain medication, the pain is bearable. I’m grateful to the nurse who kept checking on me steadily. I could drink water from 10 o’clock, but my throat was so swollen that swallowing was hard, so I only managed a little over one small cup. From 12 o’clock I had to stop drinking water again because by the 8 o’clock dressing change there might be bleeding control issues. Once the painkiller wore off, I spent the night with my eyes open from 1 a.m. onward. I was so miserable that I was scraping the wallpaper and couldn’t even look at my phone. I suffered all night, and I’m so, so, so grateful that the nurse stayed awake and kept taking care of meㅜㅜ That nurse that night was an angel.. My blood pressure is low to begin with, so they kept checking it, and even though they probably couldn’t sleep because of me, they kept worrying about me and taking care of me without any sign of annoyance. Around 6, after one painkiller shot, I started feeling sleepy, and although I woke up every 10 minutes, I slept until 8.\r\nDay 1 (the next day)\r\n- In the morning I got up and went to a room with a dental-chair-like chair for dressing change. A nurse replaced the Medifoam on the wound near the corner of my mouth that had formed during surgery and prepared to remove the drainage tube. The doctor came in and removed it. I was terrified it would hurt, but it came out more easily than expected. After the drain was removed, pressing on the surgical area of my jaw did hurt, but it felt like pressing on a bruise. Still, when the doctor looked in the mirror and said the surgery had gone well, I was just shocked by how swollen my face was. I really wondered how he could look at it and say it turned out well, which made me think medical professionals really are specialists. After the doctor left, the nurse wiped off the marker lines drawn on my face, and I was relieved that the vivid blue marks I thought were bruises were actually marker ink. They said bruising might still show up later depending on one’s skin. I got my medication and was discharged, and once the fasting period ended at 2 p.m. I ate one cup of drinking yogurt and half a container of porridge, but the porridge got stuck in my teeth more than I expected and didn’t go down well. My voice was so hoarse I could barely speak, and to take my medicine I ate the same kinds of soft foods at each meal, but by then I was in too much pain to even feel hungry. Since walking and warm compresses are said to help with swelling, I did each for 30 minutes.\r\nDay 2\r\n- After seeing the swelling on Day 1, the nurse said I wasn’t swollen much, and I thought there was no way that could be true. But seeing today’s swelling, I realized that maybe it was. It was like that on the first day too, but my lips wouldn’t close, so my front teeth felt a little sensitive. My nose was still bleeding on one side, and for some reason thick pus was pouring out of the other side. I still had bloody phlegm, and my hoarse voice came out a little more. The pain was pretty severe, so I just waited for medication time, and hunger was starting to hit me too, which was rough. Every time I ate, I used the gargle prescribed by the hospital, but the smell was awful, and I worried because it felt like food got stuck in my teeth more than expected and that it might cause a problem at the surgical site. Still, by then I was so hungry that I emptied two bowls of porridge and drank two cups of yogurt. Personally, I recommend drinking yogurt because it’s filling and doesn’t get stuck in your teeth as much. You can put it into a Daiso sauce container and it goes down easier than porridge. I did warm compresses for about an hour and walked for 40 minutes. One thing I’m curious about: I look like a total wreck, so how do other people manage to go walking? I put on a hooded zip-up at 2 a.m. and walked my dog on an empty street.\r\nDay 3\r\n- Compared to this, the swelling so far was nothing. I woke up in the morning, looked at my face, and laughed out loud. My cheeks had expanded so much they were glossy, like I had a full shine. On the other hand, the pain had decreased a lot. On Days 1 and 2 my body ached like I had caught a bad cold and I had a slight fever, but today that wasn’t the case, so I laughed at my swollen face. No matter how much I walked or applied warm compresses, the swelling kept getting worse. My voice started sounding like I had a sore throat, and instead of bloody phlegm, I started coughing up ordinary yellow phlegm. The nosebleed stopped and only a little pus came out. Once the swelling in my throat went down a bit, my appetite seemed to come back a little too. I ate a little bulgogi-and-octopus porridge, and when I tried to chew the octopus I regretted it and swallowed it instead. After a nap I was even more swollen than in the morning, and even while doing housework I kept feeling like the swelling was increasing. In the end my lips swelled so much that they split a little. A purple and yellow bruise that hadn’t been there yesterday also started showing under my right cheek. I did warm compresses for about an hour and walked for about an hour too. I originally thought I was supposed to visit the hospital on Day 3, but since it was Sunday I decided to go on Monday instead.\r\nDay 4\r\n- Today I got up early and washed up for my hospital visit. While washing, I saw that the swelling hadn’t gotten worse or better than the day before, but the bruise on the right side of my face had grown bigger and darker. I bought bruise cream and started using it. My voice improved to about the level of someone with a cold, and as long as the surgical site wasn’t pressed, there was no pain. I still had a dry cough, a bit of yellow phlegm, and a runny nose, but it was basically at the tail end of a cold. There were moments when the surgical area felt itchy or stinging, but I looked it up and found that it happens while the nerves are recovering, so I decided to ignore it. I went in and the doctor looked at it briefly, maybe for about a minute. He said I was very swollen but that it can be like that. He checked the incision inside my mouth, said it wasn’t because the surgery had gone wrong, and then left right away. I asked the nurse who was changing the Medifoam how much bone had been cut, because I was curious, but she said she didn’t know and didn’t really understand the chart entry. After that I moved to get a laser treatment for swelling reduction and went home. Honestly I don’t know whether it worked, but after four days of sleeping with my back flat on the floor I got sleepy easily again (ever since surgery I’ve been sleeping sitting up to reduce swelling.). Actually, since this was my first hospital visit after the surgery, I wanted to ask about a bunch of things, but I didn’t really get a sense that they were especially kind. I had already seen a lot of reviews saying this kind of thing was common. Still, I figured it only mattered if the result turned out pretty, so I’ll have to judge by the final outcome. Right now I’m still a swollen steamed bun, so it feels too early to decide. By Day 4 hunger was hitting me hard and it was difficult to endure. Around lunch I ate chicken ginseng porridge and tried shredding a little chicken to chew. While chewing, I ended up chewing the stitches inside my mouth too, so I contacted the hospital to ask whether that was okay, and they said it was fine, so I’m thinking of trying regular meals little by little. Since they said from Day 4 it’s good to do both cold and warm compresses, I did cold compresses for 10 to 20 minutes and warm compresses with a heat pack repeatedly throughout the day.\r\nDay 5\r\n- The swelling got a little worse. Usually people say that from Day 5 onward you start feeling more alive and the swelling improves a lot, so I was pretty disappointed. The bruise on my right cheek got even darker, and two more appeared. On my left cheek, a yellow bruise seems to be showing up a little. The swelling was worse than yesterday, and the lip swelling in particular was extremely severe, so I even called the hospital. The hospital said that during the one week you have to wear the compression strap, the swelling can’t go down, so the middle part of the face, especially around the lips and nose, is bound to swell. My lips were so swollen that they had no wrinkles at all and looked like chicken gizzards. My voice improved a lot, but because of my lips I couldn’t pronounce things properly, so all that came out was an unidentifiable uuuuuu sound. The runny nose had mostly turned clear, and only once in a while a burst of pus would come out. The phlegm also wasn’t bloody anymore, and only occasional yellow phlegm would come up. Up until now, whenever I ate I had worn the compression strap, and except when washing and gargling, I hadn’t loosened it at all, but I decided to loosen it once during meals and while doing compresses, and I also started taking Tripline, which the internet says is good for postoperative swelling. For dinner I ate soft tofu gratin with tomato sauce, and the sourness of the tomato sauce made the stitches feel hot, so I decided that even if I eat regular food from now on, I should stick to milder foods. I repeated cold and warm compresses for more than 2 hours and reapplied bruise cream three or four times a day. I also went for a 30-minute walk. Since I had started taking anti-swelling medicine too, I thought I should have some expectations.\r\nDay 6\r\n- People say the swelling really starts going down from Day 6, but nothing had changed at all, so I felt crushed. Seeing that I was still only thinking about swelling yesterday and today too, I understand why this period is called the anxiety phase. Today the cheek swelling wasn’t much different, and my lips were even more puffed up, like an overinflated chicken gizzard. Other people didn’t seem to go through this, so I spent a long time searching review photos online. As expected, I couldn’t find anyone swollen this much, but I did find someone who had similar swelling around Day 3 or 4 and wrote that after taking the compression strap off for two days, everything returned to how it was before. The hospital said wearing the compression strap for a week was mandatory, but after taking it off for about two hours and doing compresses, I could immediately see improvement. The runny nose and phlegm decreased a lot, so I didn’t wake up gasping in the middle of sleep anymore. Still, I had absolutely no strength in my body, felt dizzy, and kept falling asleep as if I were losing consciousness. Since I couldn’t open my mouth, I ate almost only porridge with a Baskin-Robbins pink spoon, and it seemed likely that the surgery, menstruation, heavy bleeding, and weight loss all played a part. I tried to make myself eat a bit more. I alternated warm and cold compresses for three or four hours, and because it rained so heavily, I couldn’t go out for a walk.\r\nDay 7\r\n- I slept while wearing the compression strap, and as expected, my lips were puffed up like chicken gizzards again in the morning. What I’ve noticed while wearing the compression strap is that it temporarily pushes all the swelling toward the center of the face, making the jawline look extremely slim. In those brief moments I could see the post-surgery face shape I was hoping for, with a sharper jawline. That day too, I wore the compression strap all morning, took it off for two or three hours in the afternoon, and did compresses. Since Day 4 I’ve been applying bruise cream regularly and frequently, and it seems to be working quite well. The yellow bruise area has shrunk, and the purple bruise has lightened a bit. I’ve already used half a tube on a bruise about the size of two thumb joints. Compared with yesterday, after taking off the strap and doing compresses for two hours the swelling had gone down exactly that much, and after showering it seems to go down even more temporarily. Since yesterday I’d been so dizzy that I got some blood sausage hangover soup to go, and while the soybean sprout heads were a little hard and difficult to chew, the rest was pretty edible. My mouth still only opens about one finger-width, but the lip swelling has gone down quite a bit, so talking is manageable. Every now and then yellow phlegm comes up and pus is mixed into my runny nose, but the frequency has definitely decreased, and the dry cough is still there. I did cold and warm compresses together for three or four hours.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLikes 0\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEmoticon\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWould you like to scrap this review? +0\r\n\r\nThis review is a postoperative review that pursues a natural look.