Anniversary

It's my one year anniversary today. I thought I'd start by talking about de-banding, since it was almost a few months ago and I don't want to forget. It was a lot more painful than I thought it would be - taking the brackets off of the front teeth was fairly excruciating, although only for a few seconds while they yanked the bracket off. My jaw was in severe pain since it still doesn't like to be open for very long. The first thing they did was take off the braces - wires and all! Handy, because I kept the braces to make a Christmas ornament out of (bwahaha).

Once the braces were all off they let me take a break and then started the sanding process. That took a long time, and the techs did most of it but then Dr. Rick did the final touches - they also added something to one of my teeth, because it had a chip in it - so it would look full.

From there they glued on my bottom and top built-in retainers and then took me straight to molds (yuck). By then no one was in the office and it was time for lunch, but I had to come back for my final pictures and retainer fitting that afternoon. I did, and everything looked fine.

Now... onto the fun part - my anniversary! Here's my long-winded update.

• Numbness: My chin is still quite numb. I find that there are weeks (like right now) that it drives me NUTS - it tingles, it tickles, it twitches, it feels like I have two inches of dried wax sitting on it... but normally after this goes away I find I have less numbness. The numbness does not bother me at all, at least when my chin isn't throwing a fit. The numbness covers my entire chin to some degree, and it extends into the sides of my mouth up into my upper lip and my front cheeks. Nowhere is completely numb, but I don't have 100% feeling back anywhere. Again, it doesn't bother me - some people I've read have been annoyed to no end about this, but unless I'm poking around with my fingernail or running my fingers lightly over my face I can't even tell.
• Jaw pain: Since my upper retainer was taken out I've had big improvements in my jaw pain. I still am unable to chew very chewy or hard things without some pain, but I can chew gum for hours now with no problem (when my jaw starts getting tired I stop).
• Jaw opening: I have good and bad days. Good days I can bite into almost anything (except tall burgers or sandwiches), bad days I have trouble with bananas. In regards of ROM, I would really recommend talking to your surgeon about their expectations - I thought I would get back to my pre-surgery opening while she figured I would get to about where I am now.
• Swelling: I don't know if it's because I'm hyper-aware of my face since surgery, but I still have swollen days - especially after I've slept on my stomach for the night.
• Appearance: I think I'm finally becoming used to my new face. I'm not totally hooked all parts of the face - my nose, for instance - but more often now I'm surprised in pictures by how I USED to look, rather than in the mirror when I wake up in the morning or wash my hands in a bathroom. It's still unnerving, though. It was much harder to get used to than I thought it would be - while I'm sure all of you just think "What an improvement!" I hated much of the new face for a long time. It didn't look like "me" - even if "me" involved a terribly gummy smile and long, long face.

Now - for the official comparison pictures! I wish I had the ones from my jaw surgeon (if they'll email me them I'll post them). First, the big one - profile pictures.


Teeth pictures courtesy of my orthodontist office before, during, after


Smile comparison:

And that's it! Official photos. The first ones were taken in November of 2007 just as I started this blog. The middle photos were all taken a week before surgery last year, and the final ones were taken when I was de-braced on April 28th.

Pretty amazing differences, eh? The most shocking, of course, are my profile pictures. If you look carefully, even my eye sockets look different. I now have more prominent cheekbones and a line where my jaw bone sits. My nose changed, but I'm finally almost used to that. My front-smile photos are odd, too - my face is a completely, completely different shape now - not only is my smile twice as wide, but my face is rounder and considerably shorter (10mm, I believe?). You can see when I smile that my top lip is a little droopy on one side - that's where a lot of my numbness resides. I'm hoping at as that comes back, it'll improve.

And that's it! I'll still be around and updating occasionally. I'm getting the top of my crown fitted after I'm home from a long, meandering vacation, and then I'm getting new molds taken and a splint made - hoping to get rid of the last pesky jaw pain.

Good luck, to everyone just starting this process. It's long, it's rough, and sometimes in the middle it feels pretty terrible, but I'm glad I went through with it.

surgeon update

Saw Dr. Lee today and we had a nice visit. She says my bite is fine (actually, she said it looks amazing and awesome). She reminded me about the jaw angle thing - that I'm at a HUGE risk for TMJ problems, along with the relapse thing. She'd like me to talk to Dr. Molen about getting a splint for at night - something that will keep my teeth apart and therefore relax my jaw a little bit. She says that the worst/hardest position for my jaw is clenched, so I need to make sure to watch that - and make sure I'm not clenching or grinding at night (I don't think I am, but since my husband is out of the state for a year I have no idea! I'll ask him when I go down to visit next month).

My favorite tech was the one to take the final pictures today and she didn't even recognize me/ realize it was me until she brought up the before pictures. She started crying - no joke - when we compared the pictures, especially the profile. I had (have) AMAZING results. I got a copy of my profile comparison (and then accidently folded it up without thinking) but will scan that in and show you guys soon.

So... She's bummed but not concerned about my jaw pain, and I'm now opening to 40mm which she says is fine. She'd like it a bit bigger but she expected me to lose ROM because of my unhealthy joints. I don't have to do physical therapy exercises - I should just eat and yawn and do everything normally (and not avoid chewing because that will make it worse), and it should continue to improve a little. I can heat and ice to get rid of some pain. I'm supposed to avoid very chewy and tough things, as they'll aggravate my jaw pain.

She doesn't want to do the injections in my jaw, but if the pain becomes unbearable (what IS unbearable, though) or if it's still around in a year, I'm supposed to give her a call... but I can call whenever I'd like, of course.

The best part about the appointment, other than hearing that my bite was okay? Seeing post-op jaw surgery patients and people getting their molds and stuff done. Had a nice conversation with a gentleman about ready to get upper jaw surgery. Almost exactly a year ago I was in that office, doing the exact same thing!

shifting

Things aren't really looking so hot for my bite, currently. On Friday I had my first migraine since surgery, and I noticed my bite felt really off. It's been feeling a bit off since I got my braces off, but that's because my bite is settling (and that's a good thing, I'm told).

Well, on Friday afternoon I noticed my bottom front teeth were bumping into my top built-in retainer. It kept happening and kept happening and my jaw was starting to get the shooting, awful pains from right after jaw surgery so I called Dr. Molen's office today and they got me in - Dr. Rick thinks my bite is just settling into a natural position. He thinks the headache and jaw pain were caused by my front teeth bumping the retainer (and therefore not being able to close naturally).

He tried to sand down my retainer so it wouldn't bump anymore, but ended up just taking it out. I go in next Wednesday and he'll re-check everything and I think I'll get new retainers, since now mine are a tiny bit loose since the built-in is gone.

Tomorrow I see Dr. Lee for my final pictures and x-rays, hopefully she'll have some insight on my small range of motion and all this stupid jaw pain.

Overall, though, I'm still glad I had the surgery. I ate corn on the cob tonight for the first time and I was able to eat it neatly and cleanly, 2 rows at a time. Only 1 migraine in a year is just fine with me - and that migraine went away once I took a pain pill and slept through the night - it didn't make me puke until I had to go to the ER or anything.

updates

I'm still around, trying to find time to make a big de-bracing entry. A few observations:

• Not having braces is AWESOME!
• Flossing and brushing takes just a few minutes even with the built-in retainers on top and bottom.
• Retainers get smelly really easily. Yuck.
• While my orthodontist said I could only wear my retainers at night, I've found that if I wait all day (on days that I play instruments, anyway) I have to squeeze on my retainers and it's painful.
• My ROM has improved slightly - prior to getting them off two fingers fit in tight, now on good days they even have a little space.

Stressful things:

• My bite doesn't always line up, especially after playing clarinet/sax. The overbite is not a lot bigger, but I'm going to call Dr. Molen as soon as I have a free afternoon so he can double check it. Because it's definitely shifted a bit.
• My jaw still hurts a lot. Bummer. Once school is out I'll see Dr. Lee and we'll think about doing something about it.