I don't know if its all the excitement of watching Meredith come back to life on Grey's Anatonomy on Thursday night, or if I have phantom sympathy pains for my fellow bloggers who have recently undergone their orthgnathic surgery, but I've had a lot of sensations (pain, tingling, itching--how I long for just one good scratch! ) on my lower lip and chin in just these past days. And then I read Jennicole's post about nerve regeneration and I realized that at 4 months post surgery, my nerves may be at the point where they are trying to reconnect. How exciting is the possibility of that!
Here is Jennicole's post, which I thought most interesting:
The reason it takes so long to get feeling back in your face is this. When a nerve is severed, if not reattached immediately (within an hour or so) the nerve will die. At that point the nerve slowly dies off, imagine how roses slowly wither away. In about the third to fourth week, the stub were the nerve was severed begins to try to make signal to the old nerve. This is what causes the itchy pin and needles tingly sensation. The remaining nerves then acts like an octopus; it send signals to other nerves in the area, once a signal is made the nerve bud begins growing towards the nerve pathway. My OS explained it like this...The old nerves that died are like a hot dog. The inside dies away, but the outer bun stays in tact. The nerve then reaches through the path of the hot dog bun. The average growth of nerve is 1/2 mm a day. So depending were the nerve is cut...you can expect that there is about 25-50 mm of growth around the jaw that has to be regenerated before feeling comes back to the face. So for yself, I have a very long face...so I can assume based on this fact that including the 3-4 weeks it takes for the nerve to die, and the nerve regeneration to grow...I'm looking at a minimum of four months based on 50 mm of growth.
Here is Jennicole's post, which I thought most interesting:
The reason it takes so long to get feeling back in your face is this. When a nerve is severed, if not reattached immediately (within an hour or so) the nerve will die. At that point the nerve slowly dies off, imagine how roses slowly wither away. In about the third to fourth week, the stub were the nerve was severed begins to try to make signal to the old nerve. This is what causes the itchy pin and needles tingly sensation. The remaining nerves then acts like an octopus; it send signals to other nerves in the area, once a signal is made the nerve bud begins growing towards the nerve pathway. My OS explained it like this...The old nerves that died are like a hot dog. The inside dies away, but the outer bun stays in tact. The nerve then reaches through the path of the hot dog bun. The average growth of nerve is 1/2 mm a day. So depending were the nerve is cut...you can expect that there is about 25-50 mm of growth around the jaw that has to be regenerated before feeling comes back to the face. So for yself, I have a very long face...so I can assume based on this fact that including the 3-4 weeks it takes for the nerve to die, and the nerve regeneration to grow...I'm looking at a minimum of four months based on 50 mm of growth.
Now don't you just want a hot dog!!!
4 comments:
Jennicole is wrong about the nerves - they aren't ever severed when having orthognathic surgery.
Hi A, thanks for your comment. I'd like to believe that were true but I have read to much to the contrary. But if you care to share your explanation of why you say that, I'd love to hear it. M
Ah, thanks for quoting Jennicole. It's fascinating. My right lower lip and right chin still feel numb, and tingling if I press them. It's really helpful to read the reasoning behind all this. Thanks!
Interesting to know.
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