Interesting Little Bit of Info

I went to see my OS yesterday, nothing exciting he thought everything looked great. Everyone in the office thinks I'm healing wonderfully! Apparently I am healing at a very fast rate....so I guess that is great news! I'm sure my age and good health has a lot to do with it.
Some other interesting stuff. I spoke to him about the numbness in my face...and thought I would share what I learned. 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 myself, 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.
Another note on this subject. We have all mentioned that after surgery our faces don't register sensations quite the same way as before surgery. This is due to the way the nerve regrows. Sometimes as the nerve regenerates it isn't able to stay on the same path (inside of the hot dog bun), it will sometimes wrap around the bun or make various twists and turns. This changes the way the nerves sense various sensations on the skin. He gave me an interesting example of this. (try it...I think it is cool) The skin reacts differently to sensations. Such as if a mosquito bites you, you instinctively slap your skin. In most cases you miss completely unless the mosquito is within your eyesight. However, if a bee lands on your skin and begins walking along your body, you know exactly where it is. Thus you smack it, usually causing yourself to get stung. Easy way to try this out. Have someone use a toothpick to poke lightly on your neck ( have your eyes closed) your nerves will not create a sensation at that exact place...rather a general location. Then have someone lightly move the toothpick across the skin (without picking it up). Your nerves will sense this allowing you to feel the exact location. I know not everyone is numb in the face from surgery right now...but when you are this is very cool. I poke myself constantly to see if I am regaining feeling. (of course I'm not) I can never feel the pokes...however my OS in the office did the whole poking thing, which I didn't feel. BUT..when he lightly rubbed his finger across my chin (which is very numb) I was able to have slight feeling there. I thought it was very cool. He then went to explain that some patients after jaw surgery have problems with nerve reception confusing sensation. Some patients register that when something pokes them, it feels like wind across their face. Or vice-versa. This is due to the nerve regenerating irregularly; such as twists or growing "around the bun".
I find knowing why and how everything heals very interesting...and I know that everyone in our group feels the same. So I thought I would share that tid bit of info.

I also got the measurements for the movements made on my jaw.
Maxilla:
-2 1/2 mm forward
-back of maxilla up 2 mm, front up 1 mm ( this was done at slight
angle to close my open bite)
- 1/2 mm to the left
Mandible:
4-5 mm forward
1 mm over Left