Tag Archives: broken jaw

Sunday food

3 May

I’m very much aware that I’ve been writing a lot more about what I’ve been eating since getting the wires removed. At first, this seemed backwards. I thought that what I ate on the more restrictive liquid diet should have received more attention because it was more abnormal. Having thought about it some more, though, I think there’s a pretty good reason for the way things are. On the liquid diet, I ate pretty much the same thing every day, so there wasn’t a whole lot to say. I’d have several smoothies, a serving of Vega, and a can of soup. Now that I have more options, of course there’s more to write about.

With that said, here’s a summary of today’s meals:

  • Breakfast was the usual oatmeal, but today I increased the portion, starting with a cup of dry oats rather than half a cup.
  • Lunch was a soy yogurt plus variations on a couple of things I’ve eaten in recent days. One was chinese noodles with miso. I decided to try this as a substitute for ramen after I realized how salty ramen is. The first time I read the label of a package of ramen a few days ago, I was impressed to see that it  had less than 200 milligrams of sodium. However, I took another look yesterday, and I realized that I had read the wrong line, confusing the number for potassium with the number for sodium. In fact, a single serving has over 1000 milligrams of sodium, so I decided to do something a little different today. As with the ramen, I added some silken tofu. This time I used firm silken tofu, which has the advantage of more protein. I had no difficulty swallowing it without chewing. The other half of lunch was a can of refried beans with shredded tortilla bits. I realized after the fact that I ate the refried beans much more quickly and comfortably than I did on Thursday.
  • Dinner was a bowl of tamarind lentils from last night.
  • Dessert was Purely Decadent soy ice cream with Latchkey Lime Pie, from a recipe of Isa Chandra Moskowitz at Post Punk Kitchen. I actually made it last night, but it finished too late for me to try it. I used a graham cracker crust (Arrowhead Mills brand) because I was looking for something crumbly. It was a great pie, although the texture is a bit more gelatinous and less creamy than a typical key lime pie. This was fine with me, but it’s not something I’d serve to an omnivore to prove that vegan food can be normal. Or maybe I just don’t want to share my pie with anybody. I ate two slices and a couple of tiny slivers, altogether adding up to about a sixth of the pie. For what it’s worth, I think the graham cracker crust worked very nicely. It crumbled in my mouth as I had hoped, and the lime filling infused it with a very nice flavor.
  • A while after dessert, I remembered that I had four mangoes, which were on sale at Whole Foods last weekend. I decided to try one which seemed ripe. It was good, but perhaps not as ripe as I should have let it get before eating it without chewing. I tried, with varying degrees of success, to crush little pieces of mango between the roof of my mouth and my tongue. It all went down, but I think it would have been better to wait a little longer for the mango to soften. The remaining three mangoes will wait a bit longer.

Incidentally, I think today is the first day in four weeks that I haven’t eaten any smoothies. I actually like smoothies, but enough to be make me want to have as many as I had while wired, so this is something of a milestone.

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Rubber bands

3 May

For the three week period following the removal of my wires, I have to have rubber bands in my mouth to keep my teeth returning to the right position. Now that I’ve been wearing them for a few days, there are a few things that seem to be worth mentioning:

  • Unlike the rubber bands that I wore on my orthodontic braces in junior high, these go right at the front of my mouth. They’re probably pretty visible to people when I talk to them, although I’m not really one to be too bothered by that. Most of the people I talk to in the course of a day have some idea of what I’ve been through over the last few weeks, anyway.
  • When I first put in new rubber bands, they taste (unsurprisingly) like rubber. In case you’re wondering, I’m familiar with the taste of rubber from licking an eraser in second grade.
  • Fortunately, I am allowed to remove the rubber bands to eat. It takes some restraint on my part not to eat all the time as an excuse to leave the rubber bands out.
  • For the first day or two, after a meal I’d find that I was having trouble figuring out where my teeth should be resting, and the rubber bands were helpful in straightening things out. By now, my jaw is finding its resting position even before I get the rubber bands back in.
  • These rubber bands are very prone to breaking. I had two break in the first section I taught on Thursday and one in the last section. Often, rubber bands will break when I try to put them in for the first time. The oral surgeon only gave me a small envelope of rubber bands, and I’ll be surprised if it lasts until my next appointment (which is Tuesday of next week).
  • Yesterday, I noticed the rubber bands making some squeaking sounds when I opened my mouth wide. I wondered if this was a sign that I’m able to open my mouth further than I previously.
  • Sometimes when I’m walking around, I’ll notice that I’m clenching my teeth. I don’t know if this is because of the pressure applied by the rubber bands or because I’m used to having my jaw wired shut. I also don’t know why this only happens when I’m walking around.

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Saturday food

2 May

I tried a few different foods today. In the afternoon, I had a mixed a shredded tortilla in with some peanut butter and jelly. It tasted pretty good, but it was hard to get the peanut butter to mix. This probably wouldn’t have been a problem had the peanut butter come from the top of the jar, but the last few spoonfuls in a jar are always hard. (If you’re keeping track, I finished that 28 ounce jar seven days after opening it, compared to six days for the last one.)

For dinner, I made the tamarind lentils from Veganomicon again. This time, I used green lentils and allowed them to cook for considerably longer than the instructions. The result of this was that the lentils ended up nice and soft, so that I can swallow them without chewing. I multiplied the recipe by a factor of approximately four, so it should last me a while. I used my largest pot (which is actually only 5.5 quarts), and the quadrupled recipe very nearly filled this. I’ll have to put the pot in the refrigerator (when it finally cools) because I don’t have any other container big enough.

I also made a dessert today, but I’ll write about it tomorrow after I’ve tried it.

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The state of my mouth

2 May

I’ve been unwired for a few days, and there are a few things that seem worth mentioning at this point.

  • I still can’t open my mouth very far, and I can’t really tell if it’s improved any. The Google knol on jaw fractures says “[it] will take a lot of effort on the patient’s part to re-obtain facile use of the jaw.”
  • I still can’t really brush the insides or tops of my teeth, but I was surprised that even from the first day, I was able to floss in between most pairs of adjacent teeth. Yesterday, I purchased some CVS brand Dental Flossers, apparently an imitation of a product called Plackers.  These allow me to floss without putting a finger in my mouth, which is helpful. For everyday use, these would seem wasteful, but given the circumstances, I don’t mind using them.
  • I left a message for my oral surgeon on Friday to see if I should be doing something about the discomfort I was experiencing, but I haven’t heard back. It’s generally feeling, better, though. I don’t know if this is actual improvement, or just a reflection of the fact that I didn’t talk much today.
  • The arch bars are held in place by some wires around the teeth, and these move around a bit now that my mouth can move. Not surprisingly, this can be uncomfortable at times.
  • For a while, I thought that eating, and specifically sucking, was creating some discomfort in  my jaw. I realized, though, that it wasn’t the bone but the gums near the wires holding the arch bars in place that hurt. Obviously that way it doesn’t make me worry that my jaw will break again, which is good.
  • I’ve noticed that the right side of my mouth tends to open a little bit further than the left side. I’m not sure if this is something that will go away over time.
  • When I first opened my mouth after the wires were removed, my top and bottom teeth felt sort of soft or mushy against each other. It occurred to me today that it no longer feels this way, but I have no idea when things changed.

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Talking and teaching

1 May

Thursday is the day I stand up in front of undergraduates for four hours and talk about calculus, so it presented a big test for my newly mobile jaw. For the most part, things went reasonably well, but there were times when things had me worrying.

In my first section, I found that talking occasionally brought pain to the left side of my jaw. I didn’t think too much of it, but it was definitely a reminder that there’s still plenty that could go wrong with this injury, and a smooth recovery isn’t guaranteed. Toward the end of the section, two of the three rubber bands in my mouth snapped. Ideally, I would have replaced them right away, but I chose not to interrupt my teaching and waited until I had a break to replace them.

My break, unfortunately, was only ten minutes long, and replacing the rubber bands took close to half of this time. While it wasn’t particularly difficult, the new rubber bands kept breaking as I tried to put them in. My second section, fortunately, went relatively smoothly, and without any broken rubber bands.

The biggest scare of the day came in my third, and final section. I started off badly with this section, having discovered on my way to the classroom that I had lost my lesson plan. Fortunately, I had already been through it twice in the day, so this didn’t present too much of a problem, and I’m not sure if any students even noticed.  However, with about fifteen minutes left, I started to feel discomfort in the left side of my jaw near the site of the fracture. I noticed that the discomfort increased when I turned my head. This all seemed eerily similar to the way things felt in the three days between my accident and the surgery, and I wondered if my bone had broken again and shifted out of place again. A couple of minutes later, a rubber band snapped. I finished the lesson, trying to move my jaw a little bit less than before, and by the time I was done, the discomfort had subsided somewhat. I quickly tried to find a men’s room to replace the rubber band, but was unable to find one in the unfamiliar and infamously maze-like Dwinelle Hall. I ended up replacing it in the hallway using the back of my iPod as a mirror, my fingers still covered with chalk and visible to anybody who walked by.

As for the pain in my jaw, I managed to convince myself that I hadn’t broken my jaw again by tilting my head back, and observing that this didn’t cause the sharp pain that it gave me before the surgery. My guess is that there’s just a little bit of swelling resulting from the increased activity in the area, but I’ll probably call the oral surgeon tomorrow just to be safe.

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More eating wirelessly

30 Apr

I had a nice breakfast of oatmeal today. It was probably the closest thing to a normal meal I’ve had in a while. I did cook it for a little bit longer than the package directions so that I’d be more comfortable swallowing it without chewing.

As I slurped my oatmeal and tried to plan my next meals, I realized that my refrigerator and cabinets are badly prepared for this diet. I bought several bags of pasta last weekend in anticipation of my upgrade to wireless, but with my no-chew diet, those will have to be blended. This is not to say that it can’t be done, but it will take some time. Somehow, I also allowed myself to run out of soy yogurts, even though I usually keep those on hand  regardless of my diet. My supply of Vega, which I had not intended to continue using after the wires came out, is also very low.

For lunch, I packed a smoothie. Not having soy yogurt, I used soy protein powder, almond milk, peanut butter, and frozen berries. It was a very chalky, which I attributed to the soy protein powder, although I don’t recall the powder doing that to the smoothies I made before my supply of Vega arrived. I also planned on using a serving of Vega upon my arrival in the office. With the smoothie and the Vega and a few leftover brownies from yesterday, I made it through the long teaching day. I was certainly hungry when I got home just before 7:30, but not unbearably so.

For dinner, I had a can of refried beans. Yes, I had the whole can, and I ate it directly from the can with nothing to accompany it. It took almost 40 minutes to eat the can of beans because I can still only open my mouth wide enough to take very small spoonfuls. Occasionally, upon sucking on a spoonful of beans, I’d feel a little bit of pain in my left jaw. I washed the beans down with another smoothie, this one containing almond milk, frozen blueberries and mango, and peanut butter. With my dinner, I also started taking the calcium supplement I bought before the surgery. I didn’t take it while I was wired because I figured I was getting enough calcium between the Vega and the enriched milks. Now that I’ll probably be taking less of the Vega, and I can swallow tablets, I decided I might as well take the calcium supplement.

For dessert, I had some more brownies leftover from yesterday and a whole lot of Purely Decadent. The brownies seem to be getting a bit harder, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to eat them. I really don’t have all that many left (perhaps a third of the recipe), but I don’t feel the slightest bit ashamed of my gluttony.

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Wireless eating

29 Apr

In anticipation of my upgrade to a wireless jaw, I went to the office this morning with a number of foods I thought I’d be able to eat. For a late lunch, I had brought the remains of the tamarind lentils–unblended–that I made on Saturday. For snacks, I brought some golden nugget mandarins, a couple of mangoes, a bag of Tings and some brownies I made early this morning to celebrate the occasion.

The lentils, I realized were too solid to eat without chewing. Had I used brown lentils, I might have had a chance at  slurping them, but I had used French lentils, which keep their shape better.

The first thing I actually ate wirelessly were the brownies. I used a recipe from Don’t Eat off the Sidewalk, which I had made once before. It was a perfect recipe for the occasion in that the brownies, aside from being delicious had a melt-in-your-mouth consistency, which was perfect for somebody unable to chew. I hadn’t anticipated the difficulty in opening my mouth, but I found that by breaking the brownies into large crumbs, I was able to enjoy them.

I then had a few of the Tings. They aren’t particularly soft, but, they’re full of air, so they dissolve after sitting in the mouth for a few seconds.

That was all I ate before I took all of my leftover food home. At home, I had some pasta with sauce, but with a little bit less sauce, and blended slightly less than yesterday. While eating the pasta, I realized I was out of practice with using a fork. Often, I’d raise a forkful of food to my mouth, only to have the fork stop when it hit my teeth. After finishing the pasta, I blended the lentils, but not quite as much as the last few days.

For dessert, I had some brownies with Purely Decadent vegan ice cream. I had stocked up on the ice cream at the Grocery Outlet (for $1.49 a pint!) while I was wired, but found that the flavors I had gotten (So Very Strawberry and Chunky Mint Madness) were not suitable for consumption through a straw.

At least so far, it seems like the expansion of my diet with the removal of the wire is not particularly great. I may even end up having another smoothie tonight.

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Mandible liberation

29 Apr

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited to go to a dentist as I was today. As I walked there, I started to feel nervous, though.  What if I were to open my mouth for the first time in three weeks and hear my jaw break again? I tried my best to forget about this thought.

When I got to the oral surgeon’s office, the receptionist recognized me and was ready with a waiver for me to sign for the procedure. I signed the waiver, which warned me about a number of things, many of which should have been irrelevant to this procedure (i.e. dry socket). A woman whom I hadn’t seen in the office before took me back to a room with a dentist’s chair and asked if I had any questions. I asked what my diet should be like with the wire off, and she said I should stick to soft foods, which didn’t surprise me. She had me sit down in the chair and asked if I wanted nitrous oxide. I asked if I needed it, and she said the surgeon would need to numb me for the procedure.

Just then, the surgeon walked in through the door, and said, “No, I don’t. She’s lying.” He explained to her that he was only taking off the wires fastening my jaw shut, and not the “arch bars”, which I gathered were the braces on my upper and lower jaws. He assured me that the procedure would be painless, and he wouldn’t even have to touch my gums. He went on to add, “You know what is going to hurt? When you try to open your mouth.” He explained that this was because I hadn’t used the muscles in my jaws for three weeks, and he compared it to the pain of getting up off the couch after sitting there without moving for three weeks. I didn’t tell him this, but I felt that the analogy was a failure because I had never sat on the couch for that long. He did, at least, tell me that it would get better relatively quickly, and I wouldn’t need to do any jaw exercises.

In any case, he looked into my mouth, and told me he was impressed  by how clean it was. “Hygiene is important,” he said, “It plays a big role in how you feel about yourself.” My self esteem has never been tied to my oral hygiene, but perhaps that’s because I don’t have a degree in dentistry. He then cut off the wires, and told me, “You’re a free man.” I started to get up out of the chair, but then he said, “You can open your mouth,” and I realized what he had meant. So I opened my mouth nice and wide, and somehow it didn’t hurt. Then I opened it a little bit wider and it hurt quite a bit, so I closed it again. I opened my mouth again, this time stopping before I felt any pain, and then slowly closed my mouth again. On the left side, my teeth felt soft against each other, but I hoped that this was just because I was unaccustomed to my top and bottom teeth moving relative to each other.

The oral surgeon explained that my bones will be considered to have healed in three weeks, and for the intervening time, I’ll have rubber bands in my mouth. As for eating, I’m not allowed to chew; the rule is that if I can slurp it, I can eat it. He warned me against Wonderbread (in which I have no interest, even not knowing whether it’s vegan) with peanut butter and jelly because that requires chewing. He listed a number of foods I can eat, including refried beans and rice, pasta, and mashed potatoes. I’m skeptical of his claim that pasta and rice can be eaten without chewing (unless blended), but I should be able to find enough to eat without his suggestions. After three weeks, I’ll be able eat some foods that require chewing, but apples will still be too hard. I’m also free to have my dentist repair my chipped teeth now.

The oral surgeon had his assistant give me toothpaste and a children’s toothbrush and instructed me to brush my teeth and my tongue while he went and did something else. The toothpaste, of course, was the non-vegan Crest, but I used it because I didn’t have my own toothpaste with me. I brushed the outsides of my teeth as I have been doing for the last few weeks, but when it came time to brush my tongue and the insides and tops of my teeth, I realized that I wasn’t able to open my mouth enough for the toothbrush (even being a children’s size) to fit through. I ended up having to settle for cleaning those parts of my mouth by rinsing. I might be a free man, but only in the sense that somebody who gets out of prison and put on house arrest is free. I’m more free than in the immediate past, but I’ve had better.

After I had cleaned my mouth, the surgeon showed me how to hook rubber bands onto the braces, which he explained were to make sure my teeth are “in the right ZIP code.” I can take the rubber bands out, but only when eating or brushing my teeth.

He told me I should come back to check in with him in two weeks. He isn’t planning on doing anything except taking a look at my mouth then, but he said that he’d have to wire it shut again if my teeth were in the wrong place. I was relieved to hear that he’s only had to do that once, but it didn’t occur to me at the time to ask how many patients he’s treated with this kind of injury.

After a quick stop at the front desk to schedule my appointment, I was on my way back to my office.

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Apparently my friends are the problem

28 Apr

Via Google, I found an informational piece about broken jaws. It told me,

Because the most common causes of jaw fractures are the result of motor vehicle accidents and assaults, the best prevention is to drive carefully and choose your friends wisely. A more realistic step that can be taken is wearing protective devices in sporting activities.

If only I had chosen my friends more carefully. . . Seriously, though, are a large proportion of assaults between friends? This is definitely news to me.

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Nightmare scenario #2

27 Apr

Lately I’ve had a scenario considerably worse than the first nightmare scenario in the back of my mind. It involves slipping and falling or perhaps twitching in some other way (maybe even just absent-mindedly yawning!) that results in my mouth opening and applying too much pressure to my jaw. As the nightmare goes, the opposing pressures from the muscles and the wires result in another fracture (or even one on each side), leaving me wired for a few more weeks.

I have no idea whether this is even something that could realistically happen, but that’s not going to stop me from worrying about something.

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