I’m not a whole man anymore =(
Back in January, I got my first thing of braces – anchoring bracket on molar in all four quadrant. That felt pretty terrible for a while – but I certainly got over it. Then in March, I got full set of braces – top and bottom, and that also felt pretty terrible for a while, and I slowly got over it. However, sometimes in early April, I did something bad to my lower lips – somehow, I jammed my lip against one of the braces post on #22 canine, and it damaged the minor salivary gland severely.
So for the next 4 weeks, I tried various things to get rid of the [mucocele] that developed from the damaged salivary gland. I cut the bullae open with my surgical blade, bit it, waited it out, etc… and nothing helped ~ the damn bubble always came back. Left without a choice when mama saw it when I went down to Key West, I made appointment with Michelle to get this … thing checked.
I was pushed into Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department soon after a quick diagnosis, and made an appointment for today to get to the root of the problem. After about 30 minute of surgery, I’m now missing a rather large chuck of salivary gland from my body. I was awake the whole time since it was just local anesthesia. Abby, OMS resident, did the surgery under the supervision of Dr. D? I dunno ~ bunch of people stood over me and watched the procedure, and I hadn’t a clue as to what the hell they were doing. Imagine my surprise when they removed a gland that’s 2 cm long by 0.5 cm wide from my lip. I mean, it’s pretty damn big from my perspective, and … yeah, I had sutures now.
Ahh, this is the price of getting Ortho Braces – I’m not too sure if it’s worth it … we’ll see!
Pre Op Picture 1 and Picture 2
Post Op Picture
May 14th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
What is that white stuff attached to your braces in the post picture. I’m assuming it’s some kind of protector so the braces won’t rub against the healing spot…
Congratulations on getting it fixed. Safe healing.
May 16th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Ah, that’s just dental wax ~ you’re right, it’s to protect the healing spot… though I had the metal post taken out, I thought it might still chafe against the bracket… so, wax!
May 29th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Sorry but that looks awful. It looks like you had what is called a mucocele. I had one too and just had surgery a couple of weeks ago. The stitches came out today, or most of them, and you can hardly tell that I had surgery. The incision is hardly visible at all. On the other hand, they look like they did a shoddy job on you. How is is healing? Does it look any better? The whole thing sounds fishy to me. I mean, it sounds like they did not really even tell you what the thing was and what they were going to do etc.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:54 am
So does your mouth look any better now? All my stitches now are out and, just three weeks after surgery, it is virtually impossible to see any incision at all. Anyone looking at my inside lip would not think I had any surgery at all, let alone just three weeks ago. The spot where the incision was is harder than it was before the surgery but the doctor says that it will soften up over the next two to three months. Reading your post again, I would say it is a mistake to let a resident do this surgery. For you to say that you had no clue at all what they were doing, well, something is seriously wrong. Why in the world did you allow a doctor, a resident no less, to be cutting into your body without you knowing what was going on? From the looks of things, the resident did not have much of an idea what was going on, either. Well, I do hope that it looks better now. Have you thought about having this checked by a reputable doctor???
June 7th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Heh, no worries Andy – I had a 2 week checkup after and at that time, the resident explained what was happening. The incision and stitches have all gone, and it’s healing very well. The hard spot underneath is some granulomatous tissue that will disappear over time. I’d live ^_^ Thanks for coming back and visiting the thread though!