Horizontal Incision On Lower Lip?

Thank you so much Spumanti!

Please, anyone and everyone who reads this let me know if you had a vertical or horizontal incision.
Thanks!!!

Horizontal. Healing fine.


B

Thanks brainfry...and your lip looks normal?

Completely. Still a bit of scar on the inside... a sort of small "raised line" if you will... but it's going away and hardly bothersome.

B

I suppose I got the impression that most incisions would be vertical based on these photos http://instruct.uwo.ca/anatomy/636/clinical%20cases/mucocele/gallery/ , where you can see that the stitches are vertical. This isn't the greatest illustration, but this also implies a vertical incision - http://square.umin.ac.jp/saitaka/kouge/kouki/2/mucocele1.gif

It just seems that horizontal stitches would run the risk of pulling the lip tighter than it should be pulled, leading to making the lip smaller than it should be.

I just got mine removed today and have horizontal stitches.

Erin,

Does your lip look fine (as in do you think it will heal looking like the same shape you had when you went in?).

Thanks!

I think so - it's kind of puffy right now, but doesn't look misshapen. It just looks like I had collagen injected into my lower lip.

Mine was excised with a vertical incision.

But one thing to keep in mind is that while my incision was vertical in that it's perpendicular to the length of my lip, it means the stitches are horizontal. So, "horizontal stitches" would mean vertical incision. And this seems to be the most common type of incision for lip mucoceles, in looking at various online photos. I also asked a friend who's a dentist, and she said that the incision on the lower lip is generally vertical.

Er, yeah, my incision was horizontal and the stitches lie vertically, but are in a horizontal line across the incision.

Okay you all just confused me. What???

Maybe I need a better description of vertical vs. horazontil...especialy since I'm really concerned about the stitches orientation to the lip and not the actual cut...and now Im not sure if you guys are telling me the stiches are vertical (perpendicular) or horazontal (Parallel) compaired to your lip.


Here:

Up and Down

If you are standing upright, do your stitches all together make a line from your lip heading down such that one stitch is higher than the other in such a way that if you connect them you would draw a line that follows the lenght of your body and would extend past the lips up into the air and down through your body to the ground. This is what I ment by vertical. Lets just call this Up and Down Stitches.

Like this:
l
l
l
l
l

or if each x is an individual stitch that all line up like this:

x
x
x
x
x


Or

Left to Right

If you are standing upright, do your stitches all together make a line from one side of your lips to the other following the curve of your lip in such a way that all the stitches are roughly the same distance away from your lip and form a line that is opposite the lenght of your body. If you connect the stitches and draw a line it would go from left to right out either side of your jaw. This is what i ment by horazontal. Lets call this Left to Right.

Like This => ------------

or if each x is an individual stitch that all line up like this:


x x x x x x

Wait, I think I see what you are saying now.

Okay I want to know about the orientation of the cut and how it was closed. Not the individual stitches.

If the cut is up and down then the stitches all together make a line going up and down.

If the cut is right to left then the stitches all together make a line from right to left.

It makes sence that each individual stitch will be perpendicular to the cut.

My cut is horizontal.

Actually, I looked at it again last night, and it is slightly diagnol, but is definitely way more horizontal than vertical. This is the INCISION I am talking about, not the stitches. :)

There must be a reason for making a decision to cut diagonal or horizontal rather than vertical......but what I don't understand is how they can go horizontal or diagonal and still excise the appropriate salivary gland that built the big creature in the first place? The salivary gland will usually extend downward....at least that's my understanding from my very limited knowledge. And it also would explain why my cut goes all the friggin' way downward. I can't even see the end of it, and I don't want to pull it to look, but I have at least 7 stitches, and it's at least 1.5 inches long.

1.5 inches long? Yikes. That sounds horribly painful. I have no idea why mine is the way that it is. They put a clamp-like thing on my mouth to push everything upwards and then cut it open at a slight diagnol angle. Maybe because they pushed everything up, they could cut it at a different angle and still get the downward extending salivary gland? I dunno. I did not really ask questions and let my oral surgeon do her thing.

For what it's worth, it is healing perfectly and I have had no problems/pain since I got it done, except for a bit of numbness and some discomfort when I laugh (though even that is getting better, and it was only two days ago that I had the surgery).

Wow, Erin, you must have had a small one? Mine was the size of a large almond (the doc even commented that it was large)....yeah, it's actually not as painful as I thought it would be. The thing that bugs me a lot is the feeling of the sharp ends of the stitches poking my gums under my teeth. That's pretty unpleasant. Plus, I can't tell whether I have food caught down there, or it's the stitches.

But yeah, I don't think the doc used one of those things on my lip. Instead, both he and the nurse held my lip during the procedure.

It's amazing that you can laugh. If I even smiled right now, it would hurt. It's a problem for me not smiling because I generally pretty smiley. I still have a big numb spot (size of a nickel or dime) on the most swollen section of my the exterior part of my lip. I don't feel any numbness on the inside of my mouth, though. I heard the numbness can last a while....I hope it comes back because it feels extremely weird when I'm drinking from a glass and such.

Mine was definitely not as large as yours sounds, but it was pretty big. The doc commented on the size of mine, too. They had to take out four or five glands. The biggest was the size of a peanut....albeit a smallish peanut. :) But, I am thankful that the incision was not as big as yours is. Ow.

The stitches poking ARE unpleasant -- I hear you on that! Though, mine are starting to get softer now and don't bug me quite as much.

That's no good that you can't smile, even! On Thursday, I had to keep covering my mouth, because I laugh all the time (I didn't realize that until I couldn't laugh so much!) and it did hurt then. I hardly feel any discomfort today, which is good. Though, I have numbness on the outside of my mouth, too, and it does feel really weird. I keep dribbling liquids down my face because I can't quite feel where my glass is supposed to go. I'm sure that looks really amazing at work when I have coffee running down my face. :) Oh well!

Ahhh, this forum is really great....I feel like we're in a mucocele support group!! LOL I think we had surgery about the same time - on Wednesday, right?

I ventured into public today (day 4). I felt a little self-conscious because I'm still swollen and bulging, but I managed. I'm still a little mumbly when I talk, and smiling still hurts. I was reading what Kadavy wrote in that he grabbed his cheeks when he started smiling because it hurt when he smiled, too. I tried that technique today, and it worked well.

I was finally able to see the end of my cut.....yep, I'd say about 1.5 inches, and I have 8 stitches!!

I know what you mean exactly regarding dribbling down the chin. I was doing that big time. Now, I seem to be able to avoid dribbling, but that numb area feels seriously weird and unpleasant against the glass. I have a friend who's a dentist, and she said that the numbness will eventually go away but to be patient because it takes a while.

Good healing to you!!

1.5 inches DOES sound very large. According to my (possibly bad) oral surgeon MINE was a large one and yet my cut was probably a bit under an inch.

Edit: The plastic surgeons who saw photos of mine before the surgery told me it was a medium sized one.