This surgery for the most part has high success rates (outside of normal complications like numbness). Unfortunately, surgery doesn't always go right, or our bodies change with time and you can relapse and require a revision surgery to get everything corrected again. In the case of the latter, you'll need to start all over again and first talk to an ortho, then surgeon, then get a plan, etc, etc. For the patients that require immediate revision, we're in a little bit of a different situation.
For immediate revision, I feel like this ends up being two categories. 1.) The kind where the surgeon/ortho/and or the patient realize it's not quite right and they continue to work together and pull the patient back in to do what needs to be done to get things where they need to be. And 2.) The kind where either the surgeon knows it's not right and continues to push on like nothing is wrong, or they misdiagnose all together and didn't catch that the results were that off and required revision. There is also a chance that they misdiagnose by saying it's correct and send you back to ortho and it actually required revision. Unfortunately I fell in to the second group. To this day I am still not sure exactly what happened. If my surgeon actually knew it was wrong and chose to look the other way or if she genuinely felt it was fine and just kicked me back to ortho. I am almost positive it's not the latter and she consciously made a decision to run from me because she didn't want it coming out that possibly some shady stuff went down for my surgery, IE: her resident performed it without her supervision.
For group 1, trust your doctors. Sometimes things don't always go as planned. Mistakes can happen, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have a bad surgeon. A bad surgeon is one like my first Kaiser surgeon where they run from the mistake and leave you broken and crooked with no help. If your surgeon is doing everything they can to make it right, then as far as I am concerned, they are doing right by you. If you do have any doubts, go get some other opinions. Multiple opinions are never a bad thing. If you're in group 2, it can be a very confusing time. Maybe your doctor is still seeing you but insists that everything is OK when you know in your gut it's not OK. Again in that case, go seek another opinion. In my case my surgeon wouldn't even see me. She wouldn't book an appointment to talk to me, examine me, and find out what was wrong. By 4 weeks post op all I knew is that I could feel my face was twisted, crooked, and torqued and I had no clue why or exactly how severe it was or what exactly was wrong and off. I just knew it wasn't right, and it was visibly obvious to the eye that it wasn't right. My ortho was mum on the whole thing and just wildly yanked my teeth all over for nothing but to cover up my surgeons mistakes, and my surgeon completely abandoned me. If you're in that unfortunate group, hopefully you have a good ortho to at least be there to give you some guidance. I didn't have that, so I was totally on my own and had to find my own way and advocate for myself in terms of my treatment. I didn't know any other patients or couldn't find another patient online who had been through the situation I found myself in, so it was a tough process of doing it all on my own. This is one of the reasons I keep this detailed blog and this website, in case another patient happens to find it and my experience can help them navigate their own unfortunate circumstances. So, what I did in my situation is be extremely proactive. I gave my orthodontist a shot, but in that 4-6 week post op time frame when I could see he wasn't going to bat for me with my surgeon, wasn't talking much, and had no good plan and was just doing major ortho movements for cover up, I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I started to go on surgeon consults, and then not too long after start going on ortho consults as well. I started the process of 1.) getting diagnosed what exactly was wrong and try to get some explanation of why it went this wrong, 2.) get a plan from each surgeon, 3.) pick a surgeon to execute that plan, 4.) get an orthodontist who I felt was going to work great with the surgeon to get me fixed finally. Something that will help you in this situation: Get all of your records. Get everything, put it in order in a file folder to present at each consult, and keep electronic copies as well. By 3-4 months post op, I advised my ortho to place me in ortho pause. He didn't want to do this and wanted to keep wildly yanking my teeth all over. If you find yourself in my situation, don't hesitate to go in to ortho pause until you can figure out what needs to be done, because wild movements on your teeth do nothing but harm the root health of the tooth and unfortunately in my situation, it's part of the contributing factors that has lead to me losing 4-6 upper/lower front teeth and requiring implants now. I went in to ortho pause until I could secure my new team. By 6-7 months post op after numerous consults with ortho's and surgeon, I was able to transfer to the care of my new team and start revision treatment.
No matter what your case is for requiring revision, it's important to keep your head up. Especially in my case, it was very easy to go to a bad place and feel pretty violated and devastated after being completely abandoned by my treating surgeon and done completely wrong by my ortho as well. It's completely human to go through the usual emotions of shock, depression, anger, but don't let it consume you. Do what you have to to process these emotions. I even talked to a therapist for a little bit, and for some people that is incredibly helpful. My friends and family were also helpful, lending me ears and giving advice. It's important to try and keep a positive attitude. I think that has played a huge role in my revision treatment. I always get compliments from all of my doctors about how easy going, understanding, and positive I am through all of this. I've been told they wish their normal patients could be more like me, and these are people who haven't seen the complications and mistreatment I have. I tend to be a pretty pragmatic and sometimes pessimistic person, so I am pretty proud of myself for handling this whole journey in a pretty positive way. I think this blog has helped me too, both in a sense that I'm able to get things out, and also make me feel like sharing what I went through can help others and makes my experience less for nothing. This whole process is incredibly difficult to go through even when it all goes perfectly, but if you find yourself in the unfortunate bunch where you catch some bumps in the road, just remember to remain positive and take things day by day and hopefully you can properly get things addressed to finally get to a good place with your treatment.
For immediate revision, I feel like this ends up being two categories. 1.) The kind where the surgeon/ortho/and or the patient realize it's not quite right and they continue to work together and pull the patient back in to do what needs to be done to get things where they need to be. And 2.) The kind where either the surgeon knows it's not right and continues to push on like nothing is wrong, or they misdiagnose all together and didn't catch that the results were that off and required revision. There is also a chance that they misdiagnose by saying it's correct and send you back to ortho and it actually required revision. Unfortunately I fell in to the second group. To this day I am still not sure exactly what happened. If my surgeon actually knew it was wrong and chose to look the other way or if she genuinely felt it was fine and just kicked me back to ortho. I am almost positive it's not the latter and she consciously made a decision to run from me because she didn't want it coming out that possibly some shady stuff went down for my surgery, IE: her resident performed it without her supervision.
For group 1, trust your doctors. Sometimes things don't always go as planned. Mistakes can happen, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have a bad surgeon. A bad surgeon is one like my first Kaiser surgeon where they run from the mistake and leave you broken and crooked with no help. If your surgeon is doing everything they can to make it right, then as far as I am concerned, they are doing right by you. If you do have any doubts, go get some other opinions. Multiple opinions are never a bad thing. If you're in group 2, it can be a very confusing time. Maybe your doctor is still seeing you but insists that everything is OK when you know in your gut it's not OK. Again in that case, go seek another opinion. In my case my surgeon wouldn't even see me. She wouldn't book an appointment to talk to me, examine me, and find out what was wrong. By 4 weeks post op all I knew is that I could feel my face was twisted, crooked, and torqued and I had no clue why or exactly how severe it was or what exactly was wrong and off. I just knew it wasn't right, and it was visibly obvious to the eye that it wasn't right. My ortho was mum on the whole thing and just wildly yanked my teeth all over for nothing but to cover up my surgeons mistakes, and my surgeon completely abandoned me. If you're in that unfortunate group, hopefully you have a good ortho to at least be there to give you some guidance. I didn't have that, so I was totally on my own and had to find my own way and advocate for myself in terms of my treatment. I didn't know any other patients or couldn't find another patient online who had been through the situation I found myself in, so it was a tough process of doing it all on my own. This is one of the reasons I keep this detailed blog and this website, in case another patient happens to find it and my experience can help them navigate their own unfortunate circumstances. So, what I did in my situation is be extremely proactive. I gave my orthodontist a shot, but in that 4-6 week post op time frame when I could see he wasn't going to bat for me with my surgeon, wasn't talking much, and had no good plan and was just doing major ortho movements for cover up, I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I started to go on surgeon consults, and then not too long after start going on ortho consults as well. I started the process of 1.) getting diagnosed what exactly was wrong and try to get some explanation of why it went this wrong, 2.) get a plan from each surgeon, 3.) pick a surgeon to execute that plan, 4.) get an orthodontist who I felt was going to work great with the surgeon to get me fixed finally. Something that will help you in this situation: Get all of your records. Get everything, put it in order in a file folder to present at each consult, and keep electronic copies as well. By 3-4 months post op, I advised my ortho to place me in ortho pause. He didn't want to do this and wanted to keep wildly yanking my teeth all over. If you find yourself in my situation, don't hesitate to go in to ortho pause until you can figure out what needs to be done, because wild movements on your teeth do nothing but harm the root health of the tooth and unfortunately in my situation, it's part of the contributing factors that has lead to me losing 4-6 upper/lower front teeth and requiring implants now. I went in to ortho pause until I could secure my new team. By 6-7 months post op after numerous consults with ortho's and surgeon, I was able to transfer to the care of my new team and start revision treatment.
No matter what your case is for requiring revision, it's important to keep your head up. Especially in my case, it was very easy to go to a bad place and feel pretty violated and devastated after being completely abandoned by my treating surgeon and done completely wrong by my ortho as well. It's completely human to go through the usual emotions of shock, depression, anger, but don't let it consume you. Do what you have to to process these emotions. I even talked to a therapist for a little bit, and for some people that is incredibly helpful. My friends and family were also helpful, lending me ears and giving advice. It's important to try and keep a positive attitude. I think that has played a huge role in my revision treatment. I always get compliments from all of my doctors about how easy going, understanding, and positive I am through all of this. I've been told they wish their normal patients could be more like me, and these are people who haven't seen the complications and mistreatment I have. I tend to be a pretty pragmatic and sometimes pessimistic person, so I am pretty proud of myself for handling this whole journey in a pretty positive way. I think this blog has helped me too, both in a sense that I'm able to get things out, and also make me feel like sharing what I went through can help others and makes my experience less for nothing. This whole process is incredibly difficult to go through even when it all goes perfectly, but if you find yourself in the unfortunate bunch where you catch some bumps in the road, just remember to remain positive and take things day by day and hopefully you can properly get things addressed to finally get to a good place with your treatment.
