My Story as a Jaw Surgery Victim / Survivor
Hello, my name is Michael and 20 years ago a jaw surgery sent my life down a dark and painful path. I’m now trying to spread the word so that others are not subject to the same unnecessary suffering.
I was born with a Cleft Lip and Palate – a congenital birth defect where the upper jaw is not completely formed at birth. On the day I was born I was transported from the small hospital where I was born by ambulance to a major city nearby where a team of specialists were able to care for me and get me feeding properly. From that day on, I followed a medical ‘care plan’ for people like me that involved multiple interventions to help ‘correct’ the issue I was born with. The culmination of this ‘treatment’ was a major orthognathic jaw surgery at the age of 21 – where my upper and lower jaw bones were cut into pieces, re-arranged and screwed back together with surgical screws and plates.
Before orthognathic surgery I was warned by my surgeon and medical team that the risks were limited to “numbness in the chin” – what a catastrophic inaccuracy that was. Since the surgery I have had constant life-diminishing symptoms such as constant pain in my head, face and neck, major depression and the development of PTSD.
It completely changed the trajectory of my life for the worse. I was once a happy, healthy, young man (although naive), and now I struggle with health and wellbeing every day. I am changed in such a way that normal living is not possible. Relating to normal people is not possible. I have lost friendships, family relationships and career.
At first, I did not know how to respond – I spent several years after the surgery in a headachey daze – just feeling awful but not knowing how or where to turn. I also did not know how to speak about this – since almost no-one can relate to this kind of thing, I felt completely alone. I went to many therapists/counsellors, but this type of medical trauma is so foreign to most people that even therapists ended up baffled and helpless towards me. For years and years I did not speak to anyone but my immediate family about what had happened. Many people in my life noticed a change in me – “You’ve changed.”, “Somethings different about you.” “What happened to you?”… but I could never communicate what happened in a way that created any understanding. I cannot blame anyone for not understanding – what happened, how my life changed and feels now, is unimaginable – even I would have never believed it if you’d told me before surgery. Just imagine a endless nightmare come true.
Now, after 20 years, I’m no longer afraid or hesitant to share my story. I have seen the effect this surgery had on my life with perspective now and I know without a doubt it is a cruel and unnecessary thing to do to a person.
The greater tragedy is that this surgery continues every day. People are fooled into doing this without ever being told the true risks. If you google the risks most sources say the surgery is very safe – this is complete bollocks. If you know anything about scientific scrutiny you will see that the studies purporting orthognathic surgery to be safe are not even close to credible science. They are ALL done by jaw surgeons themselves. Listening to these studies is like listening to a cigarette company tell you smoking is nearly harmless. The even more dangerous thing is that many medical authority websites like mayoclinic, healthine and others are spreading the notion that jaw surgery is low risk, based on these terrible ‘studies’. All of this gives people who are considering jaw surgery for themselves the false impression that the risks are low when in fact they are tragically high.
On top of that, many people post their before and after pictures online and share their positive stories with jaw surgery, but even these should not be trusted – people have incentives to appear well even when they are not. People want to be optimistic, downplay complications and appear strong, confident and beautiful. Suffering is rejected – people know this. People put on a happy, brave face in order to survive socially. Even I was like this, if people asked me in the first few years after the surgery if it was worth it I said yes. I said I felt great. This was a mix of optimism, hopeful thinking, wanting to fit in and knowing no one would understand my problems, so why would I tell them? Also, in the immediate aftermath, I was not fully aware of the extent to which I was hurt. Now the problems have settled in, refused to get better and had major impacts on my life over 20 years. Now, I don’t lie about it anymore.
In my research to create this website I discovered hundreds of other accounts just like mine – people who lost their health and quality of life due to jaw surgery. These stories are hard to find – they do not show up on the front page of google, but there are hundreds of them on websites like reddit.com/r/jawsurgery/, archwired.com, jawsurgeryforums.com, and realself.com. Check out the testimonials I have aggregated on the testimonials page of this site. They speak to unforeseen pain, depression, loss of self and much, much more. I relate to every one of them.
This website is my warning to you. You young, naive person who is considering a jaw surgery – for health, for looks, for sleep, for confidence – you are not being told the full story and if you knew it you would run away from jaw surgery.
When I was making my decision to do the surgery or not, there was not internet forums about it – I had to take the doctor’s word. But things are changing. Patient testimonials are becoming more and more visible. People are becoming more and more skeptical of modern medical claims. Some doctors are starting to acknowledge that jaw surgery is highly problematic. Even the world leading jaw surgery researcher, Professor William Bell, finished his career by publicly stating that all-in-all jaw surgery is “too complicated, too invasive and too unpredictable.”
The idea that orthognathic surgery is a safe and effective way to treat a person is a lie that is coming to an end. One day it will be fully recognized as a destructive, not corrective, procedure.
Don’t do what I did. Keep your natural face.
– Michael