A college student had to have her jaw wired shutand live off a liquid diet after the popular jawbreaker candy lived up to its name, fracturing her jaw in two places.
Javeria Wasim, 19, says she and a friend were shopping when they picked up the candy, which can be as big as a cue ball. “We got a giant one, the biggest size they had,” Wasim told Kennedy News and Media via The Daily Mail, adding that at the shop, they asked, “ ‘Can we bite into this? The candy is literally called a jawbreaker.’ “
Instead of working her way through the candy over a period of time, Wasim, a business administration student in the U.K., tells the outlet that once they got back to their dorms, “I bit into it and only made a hole, and my jaw started to hurt. My friend looked over and said my tooth was chipped.”
Javeria Wasim, 19, broke her jaw on a piece of candy.
The pain intensified quickly, she says. “I was crying a lot when the ambulance came, and everything was blurry.” At the hospital, a CT scan and X-ray confirmed she had fractured her jaw in two places from biting into the candy.
“They told me my jaw was broken and needed to be wired shut. I was shocked; I thought my biggest problem was my broken tooth,” says Wasim, who had to have surgery to repair the damage. Recovery included wiring her jaw shut for six weeks, during which she lived on a liquid diet. ”I can’t eat anything, all I’m having are protein shakes and soups,” she told the outlet, adding she lost 7 lbs. In the first two weeks of having her jaw wired shut.
“I haven’t eaten in 42 days,” she told the outlet while her jaw was still wired shut. “I have soup but you’re never full, you’re always hungry. All I can think about is how hungry I am. I took the feeling of being full for granted. I miss food so much. I also feel irritated all the time. I can’t open my mouth, I can’t lick my lip if food gets on it, I can’t use my teeth to open something.”
X-ray image of Javeria Wasim’s fractures.
Wasim, who had her jaw un-wired on Dec. 23, tells the outlet that now she has to repair the damage the jawbreaker did to her teeth.
“All my bottom teeth are messed up. My two front teeth have a little gap now so I’ll have to get braces to fix them,” she said.
“It was such a stupid thing, people break their jaws in car accidents and fights, this was such an avoidable way to break your jaw,” she says. “I’d tell people if they want to get in the middle of a jawbreaker, it’s better to take the six weeks to get through to it than having six weeks suffering the consequences of biting it and having your jaw wired shut.”
