Day 17 …. Sleep is Improving…Slowly

I am still having trouble getting to sleep…. Not a big deal, we all have trouble getting to sleep. However last night after waking up once, I then fell asleep and stayed asleep for 5 plus hours. That is a miracle. I still don’t know where my CPAP machine is and I don’t care.

On to more good things….. I have little to no jaw pain. I have no numbness anywhere. I am not on medication. Unlike many MMA surgery patients (as reported on their blogs), I have little to no sinus congestion. And remember, I was suffering with chronic sinus infections for years prior to my surgery.

Many MMA surgery patients report that the movement of the jaws forward also produce a stretching of the nose (also flattening). This, they and I both report, allows for the nose to be stiffer and less prone to collapsing when inhaling. That is another benefit of this surgery.

I am still not experiencing that refreshed feeling when I wake up in the morning. It has been so long since I have experienced that, that I am wondering if that feeling really exists. I do have more energy, not a lot but some. I do not seem to need naps anymore. And come 9 -10 pm at night I do not seem to have to drag myself to bed.

Cleaning my teeth is still a chore, more like a battle. I can’t open my teeth more than a quarter inch and that is difficult to do. I have 4-5 bands roped around metal braces (arch bars) that block much of my teeth surface. My lips are so sensitive from the arch bars rubbing on them that when brushing or using the water pick they become the pain center for pain.

I understand why they say we eat way too much in America. For the past one to two weeks I have been eating about 25-30% of the calories that I was eating pre-surgery and I am surviving. Granted, I am not doing as much physically but that is still a big decrease in calorie consumption. My stomach feels full most of the time and only growls in the early morning when first getting up. I am trying to push the calories and protein in though. I do not want to do anything to disturb the healing process.

From reading other blogs, I noticed many MMA surgery patients were opening their teeth and jaws to accommodate ground up foods at weeks two and three. That sounds good but I think I will sacrifice the food cravings for less jaw movement and faster/stronger healing. Dr. Li advised me that the reason he loosened my bands at two weeks was for patient comfort and not freedom to eat more things.

One last comment for today. I have started to listen to music again with some quality headphones (same ones I used before surgery). I am noticing that I am hearing many many more of the words from the songs. These are the same songs from the 50’s and 60’s that I listened to pre-surgery. I guess this goes to prove that when you suffer from sleep apnea and sleep deprivation that your focus and concentration levels are very poor. Just another benefit of fixing something that was broken.