Not sure if this is the right board for general health questions
I need to get surgery on my jaw and a titanium implant to hold the bone together is required. Is it possible for this to frick with my health? Allergies due to oxidation or something? I'm kind of spooked at the prospect of having a foreign object put into my skull.
pic unrelated by the way that's not the implant I'm getting but I couldn't find an appropriate pic
Titanium works very well with human tissue, that's why it's used in implants so often.
The chances of complications from the metal itself are very low, you shouldn't worry about it too much.
Really. I heard bad stories about allergies and such leading to long term complications so I was wondering
Titanium itself doesn't react with human tissue, there can be complications like with most surgeries, but it's mostly from bad hygiene or other risk factors.
Shouldn't you ask your doctor this?
He told me it was generally fine but that he recommended removing the implants a year after the surgery. Problem is that won't be possible since I'll have moved abroad by then
How long will you abroad for?
Possibly indefinitely. Removal surgery can only be done within a 6 month to 1 year window anyway.
That's true. Sutures I'm not too worried about since it mostly comes down to hygiene and antibiotics
Why would that be impossible? Can't you just come back home for the removal surgery? I think you should try your best to follow your doctor's advice.
It would be very inconvenient to say the least. I'm basically starting a new life and won't be able to just come and go during the first year.
Surgeon told me titanium parts were removed post-op in 90% of cases but that it wasn't strictly necessary.
Bother the bone how?
Going back to my country is going to be very inconvenient until I have a stable residency permit
Do they have surgeons in your new country?
I guess
It's strange to me too, it's not supposed to be invasive or bother you so idk why he wants to remove them. He told me it also serves to prevent complications if you later get a car accident that fricks up your face but that seems oddly specific
>It's strange to me too, it's not supposed to be invasive or bother you
Cutting you open and bolting metal to your bones is dictionary definition of invasive.
>so idk why he wants to remove them. He told me it also serves to prevent complications if you later get a car accident that fricks up your face but that seems oddly specific
What other likely situation would a normie run into where they'd get impact to the face?
I meant invasive in the sense "hard to deal with in daily life/inconvenient"
>What other likely situation
Getting in a fight? Even then how would that be an issue? By the time the bone is healed, the titanium has become biologically integrated with the bone tissue. It's not like an ikea shelf where the bolts come off if you hit it a bit hard
>Bother the bone how?
Those screws they use to attach the plate to the bone will inevitably go loose, which means 2 things:
-screws wiggling in the holes as you move your face and jaw, and damaging the bone
-the plate itself beginning to move and scratching the bone/tissues around it
Not to mention that those holes have to heal at some point, and having screws in them prevents that.
>Going back to my country is going to be very inconvenient until I have a stable residency permit
Then delay the surgery until it isn't so inconvenient.
>inb4 can't do that
Then choose whether you care more about your jaw or about stable residency permits.
>-screws wiggling in the holes as you move your face and jaw, and damaging the bone
>-the plate itself beginning to move and scratching the bone/tissues around it
Huh? I don't think that's a thing, implants don't loosen over time
It depends on the bone the screw is attached to, the degree of movement that said bone faces, and other diseases that the patient may have.
I don't know what the chances are for screws inserted in a jawbone, nor do I know if OP is osteoporotic, but there are cases where such screws did go loose. For example, the screws used in spinal fusions (I think they're called pedicle screws).
I'm OP, screws will be placed in the upper jaw, not the part that moves, so I don't think the bone is supposed to move at all. Unless muscles can make screws come loose I think it's safe
Not osteoporotic either
In that case I think it's fine.
They loose. Titanium is far stronger than bone and less brittle. And it is Jaw. Imagine that you have a pin in a sand and move it around. It will make a hole larger while moved.
There is a lot of problems also with weakening of bones, because it is actually living tissue (wolff's law of bone reconstruction) that leads to breaking of it around implants.
And these implants that do not loose over time are usually coated with hydroxyapatite.
Isn't bone supposed to form over titanium by integrating it into the tissue?
Only if it is especially prepared for it, with a lot of sponge like structure and coated with hydroxyapatite which is similar to bone and allows bone to integrate with it.
Pure titanium will integrate a litte. but it is not the best you get.
Then as I said - a wollf's law is about reconstruction of bone in the direction of acting force (due to electrochemic movement of ions in bone). If you have metal implant it is metal implant that will take a lot of acting force on itself while the bone will be not active leading to osteoplasty and weakening of the bone. Of course it really depends a lot which bone and what implant and how they are connected.
It's the maxilla (upper jaw) which isn't supposed to actually move as I understand it. If it were on a joint or something I would understand but how would screws move if the bone is entirely stationary?
If there is nothing to move and no forces acting regularly on that part of the bone then it should be safe.
I'm no jaw surgeon but yeah I'm pretty sure the upper jawbone isn't supposed to move, just like the rest of the skull
>he recommended removing the implants a year after the surgery
Yea that's less because of allergies and more because you have a chunk of metal stuck in your face and it's inevitably gonna bother the bone.
>Problem is that won't be possible since I'll have moved abroad by then
So just go to the hospital, get it removed, stay there for 2 weeks to make sure there's no surgery complications, then go back. it's 2024 Anno Domini, it's really not that complicated to travel anymore.
You could get to the other side of the planet in like a day lmao
I had a mate with a titanium allergy, he broke his thumb and had to have the pin taken out like 2 months later because his thumb was always swollen. By then the bone was healed and he didn't need the pin, so it was kind of a nothing burger.
Later he broke his jaw really bad and had to get a dental implant because he swallowed one of his front teeth, and they used stainless steel for that one because he was allergic to titanium. Titanium is preferred over stainless because you can still get an MRI with titanium in your body, but you can't with stainless. If my buddy ever needs an MRI because he gets a weird cancer or whatever, they'll have to pull his front tooth first.
> he recommended removing the implants a year after the surgery.
This is weird. Unless your body has a reaction to an implant or its in a configuration with a quality of life implication, it's best practices to leave the medical device in, because there's more risk associated with going under the knife a second time than there is with just letting you live with an inert piece of metal in you. I still have a titanium plate and 6 screws in my collarbone from when I shattered it doing motorcross, and it'll be there until I die unless it starts to bother my body, but it's been 5 years and it's fine. It's fun, because you can feel the bolts through my skin, so I've always got an excuse to take my shirt off around women if I can get people to talk about injuries or motorcycles or metal detectors.
Honestly the fricking your jaw up part will have more impact on your life, at most you want the sutures to heal perfectly
The rod itself os fine
>titanium
>oxidation
Lol. Lmao even. Titanium doesn't rust mate. That's why they use it. Idk where you heard of allergic reactions. I'm sure it's possible but the chances of someone being allergic to titanium are almost nonexistent. But if you have concerns I would ask the person who will be doing the surgery, not this basket weaving forum populated by morons.
Titanium forms an oxide layer that prevents it from being altered iirc but it does sometimes slowly degrade in the body depending on the pH
No. Titanium is simply not reactive enough to cause any poisonings or allergic reactions, and too resistant to ever fall apart and block shit.
>oxidation
When you're talking about titanium, oxidation means "thin film that never comes off", not "rust flakes that crumble in your hands".
The degradation is negligible and the resulting compounds are inert.
Even actual acids struggle a ton with titanium, your body's pH won't do shit to it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7961127/
Huh.
Fair enough.
I have more screws and plates on my face then most men have in their toolbox. I dont think about it at all, never had any issues.
how do you know you're allergic to titanium
>.t allergic to nickel
isn't nickel allergy the only common metal allergy
I had titanium implants on my jaw after getting it broken in a fight a few months ago, I had two plates put in I remember the doctor called the procedure an ORIF but I can't remember what it stood for. There is a slight chance it could get infected in which case the implants would be removed. The longer you have the implants in the less likely infection becomes as your body creates a layer over them. It's nothing to worry about I can't even feel mine through my face. It's just weird to think that when I'm dead and buried eventually all that will be left will be two small titanium plates forever. Pic related was one of fractures
Where are they, upper or lower jaw? And how was the post op pain, vomiting etc?
You cannot be allergic to titanium if it is pure. And to gold. This is the first one is used as implants and second one was used through history as implants.
Watch out if they will try to give you stainless(austenitic) steel or implant with shape memory (Ni-Mg) causer you can be allergic to nickel, molibdenum and chromium.
Stainless steel is fine I think, it's just bad for MRIs
I also think it's the standard in Europe and North America to use titanium for all implants
Stainless steel is not fine for everybody, but for ~95% of people. Titanium is fine for 99.99% of people.
And standard is using stainless for short duration implants and titanium for longer duration. For old people for cost cuts they tend to make stainless implants anyways.