“Does your jaw have to be wired shut after jaw surgery?”

Not necessarily, bone needs to be immobilized to heal. Back in the day, all we had to keep the jaws from moving was wires and looping them around the teeth to create that stable reproducible bite. Now we have plates and screws which can accomplish the same goal. If your surgeon feels that they can complete your case and keep your bite stable during the healing process with just plates and screws, then the answer is yes. Otherwise, the answer is "you will get wired up".

The good news is that a lot of patients don't need to have their jaws wired shut after surgery. While you are under anesthesia, your surgeon will use titanium plates and screws to secure and splint the jaw bones in their new position. New bone will grow around these plates and screws and don't need to be removed.

In most cases, your jaw is not wired after jaw surgery. We now use elastic bands to help guide you into the new bite which allows for limited jaw opening during the recovery phase.

I haven’t wired a patient shut in 20 years.

Although any patient undergoing orthognathic (corrective repositioning jaw surgery) should be prepared for the possibility of requiring wiring the teeth together (maxillomandibular fixation) for a period of time after surgery (3-6 weeks), the majority of procedures of this kind performed today utilize placement of small titanium plates and screws to hold the repositioned jaw(s) in place without requiring wiring the teeth together with other than during the surgical procedure. The use of these pieces of titanium hardware is known as rigid fixation of the sectioned bone. Rigid fixation has alleviated many of the postoperative difficulties of our jaw surgery patients. Your Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon should be able to provide you with a clear understanding of what you should expect as far as indications for, risks of, benefits of, and alternatives to orthognathic surgery. If you have concerns with your facial appearance and not strictly with the alignment of your teeth, one should always seek consultation with an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon prior to beginning orthodontic treatment, as coordination of care between the surgeon and the orthodontist and general dentist is critical for success.