Your Stories
spumanti, it sounds like your surgery was rough.
The pictures you were talking about were actually almost identical to my situation, so I guess experiences vary quite a bit!
I had an operation to remove what my ENT called a mucocele about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I no longer have any pain (I did up until a few days ago) but there is another hard lump at the site where the original mucocele was. After reading this forum (it's great btw..) I'm starting to think this is scar tissue. It's farily hard, does not change in size, and doesn't appear to be fluid filled. The question I have is how do you get rid of the scar tissue?? Does it REALLY go away on its own? This lump is easily 2x larger than the mucocele and definitly more annoying. Due to its location (lower lip, left side) I sometimes have trouble pronouncing words. I think it's subtle and others may not catch it but I can defintely tell that some words don't come out quite right.
Options I read about include a cortisone shot to the scar which softens it up or laser surgery to remove the scar tissue. Also daily massage of the scar, perhaps with Vitamin E oil. Any experience with any of these (or any other procedure for reducing scar tissue) would be very helpful.
The surgeon who performed the removal literally spent all of TEN TO FINTEEN MINUTES doing it. Ten to fifteen minutes of his time (along with several hundred dollars of my money) but possibly a lifetime of self-consciousness for me.
Has anybody here actually gone through with plastic surgery after you were totally healed? I'm seeing a lot of posts of people who are unhappy with their outcome. I am too.
My Story:
Had my mucocele about 1 year, never did anything because it was pretty well hidden on the inside. I knew what it was from googling my symptoms and figured it wasn't dangerous.
This month I decided to get it taken care of. When the doc opened up my lip, it was much deeper than he thought. About 3/4 inch! It was growing down into the muscle layer.
He NEVER warned me about the permanent numbness or disfiguration!!!
So, here I am two weeks later with this numbness from where he cut my nerves (he told me after the fact that this could be permanent). My lip also looks funny - in order to close the hole he stitched some of my outer lip in towards my inner lip. On my right side my lip is very thin and pulled in, and my mouth doesn't close all the way when it's at rest. Awful!
So, I'll of course wait a few months before getting any other surgeries, but I was wondering if anyone had gone through with plastic surgery to correct disfiguration, and if so, how did it turn out?
Mucoceles suck. I wish I'd just kept the stupid lump.
Rflynn,
I haven't gotten plastic surgery yet, but I will be getting it soon. I am planning the surgery for this summer. Hopefully this will make them look normal again. I will remember to come back in here and post.
Oh and as an update. My lip is as numb as it was the last time I wrote. My lip also looks just like it did a year ago. So, no change. Permanent disfigurement. Permanent numbness. My natural lips are ruined.
If it has only been two weeks then I wouldn't worry too much about the way it looks or if it's still numb. I've had this mucocele surgery twice and both times it took around a month or longer to get the feeling back in my lip. I still don't have all the feeling back but it's such a small area if the feeling never came back it wouldn't affect me too much. As far as the disfigurement it can take up to 6 months for your lip to be completely healed so over time the appearance may get better. If after 6 months you are still unhappy with the way your lip looks then I say go to a plastic surgeon and see what they say. I just had my second surgery almost two months ago and if in four months I don't like the way it looks i'm definitely going to talk to a plastic surgeon. Good luck.
