Why we shouldn’t drink with a straw after our orthognathic surgery

Why we shouldn’t drink with a straw after our orthognathic surgery

After oral or maxillofacial surgery, the most normal thing is to spend some time with a liquid diet, since the opening of the mouth is minimal, although with the right exercises there is a noticeable gradual improvement.

There are many forums where people who have undergone orthognathic or other surgeries share their experiences and advice before and after their surgery, helping to reduce the feeling of anxiety that may have people who are about to have surgery. However, we must be careful when taking advice from non-professional sources, since what works or may be advisable in a specific case, can also be harmful to other patients.

This is the case of straw bottles, recommended by expatients in a multitude of blogs, forums and social networking posts. According to experts, drinking straw impairs the healing and recovery process after orthognathic surgery. This is because, when performing suction, we generate a negative pressure that can drag the clots that are forming, interrupting its normal stabilization process, and lengthening the healing process. In the end it is a counterproductive action: to alleviate the discomfort of feeding, we are making recovery slower, and therefore we are lengthening the process of discomfort that we wanted to avoid in the first place.

Instead of drinking with a straw, it is advisable to try drinking with glasses and feeding with large syringes (without needles) that do not require a suction gesture and therefore do not affect the healing process, passing to the spoon as soon as possible.

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