Double jaw surgery update - braces almost off!!

Hello there! I have some very exciting news in jaw land. On Monday, my orthodontist told me that he will take off my braces in six weeks - December 27th. I couldn't be more excited!!

At my last appointment on Monday (11/14), my orthodontist did something called "disking" which is shaving some of the tooth enamel in between the bottom teeth. This is considered a finishing touch and the idea is to bring my bottom teeth back a bit. That way my teeth will fit together better overall.

I think all the space is finally closed - only took 16 months! In four weeks, I'll get my finishing wires and then two weeks later the braces will be gone.

I'll post pics for sure once the new smile is complete!

Updated pics!

Below are some of the initial before and after pictures. The before pics are about three weeks before my SARPE. The after pics are one year post-SARPE and 3 weeks post lower jaw surgery & genioplasty. Seriously, who is that person in those pictures from 5/30/10?


5/30/10 - Pre-SARPE & Lower jaw surgery



7/12/11 - 3 weeks post lower jaw surgery

 


5/30/10 - Pre-surgery





7/12/11




7/12/11





Weeks 14 and 15 - The curry incident

10/17---------------------------11/17-----------------------12/17


Hello and happy holidays! The weeks are going by super fast and I realize that this probably the longest I've gone between blog posts! I didn't think my teeth were straightening up, but when I look at the progression, I can see that they've straightened up a ton in the past month. It even looks like the gap up top has closed in a bit so yay for that!

I've read that curry can cause your powerchains / rubberbands to change colors and I can confirm this is absolutely true. Online, I read that silver was a safe choice, but some chicken vindaloo later, my pretty silver powerchains are now a shiny gold. I've actually had curry twice in the past two weeks so clearly I am a glutton for punishment. I can report that the gold color does fade with brushing so over time it's not as bright as say the night you have curry. When this happened originally, I was going to get my elastics changed, but then I figured it blended well enough with my teeth, so I decided to skip it. My next adjustment is the 29th so I'll have to see about getting a different color up top.

For those that haven't entered the braces stage yet, I've decided that in retrospect, the metal brackets are way better than the "clear" brackets. First the brackets aren't really clear, hence the quotation marks and second, they're a lot bigger than the metal brackets. Plus the dark gray elastics blend well with metal and don't stain.

Also, I've tried to cheap out on the threader floss by buying Oral B's brand and I've got to say nothing beats Crest's threader floss. The Oral B floss took twice as long to thread—not worth it when my brushing routine is already such a process.

Weeks 12 & 13

30 days-----------------------60 days-------------------------90 days
Braces timeline

Left side

Right side

It's been almost a month since I posted pictures so I wanted to get a whole bunch up today. As you can see, the gaps between my front teeth and the lateral incisors are almost closed. Yay! I have gotten over any self-consciousness I had over my teeth and now no longer use wax to hide the gaps. I officially went wax free around 11/20. It just got to the point where I didn't want to deal with it anymore and the gaps to me seem not that bad. Plus, I've had about three incidents already where I swallowed the wax. Yuk, right? So far now, the baby gaps still need to close and then maybe this front one will start closing again. In other positive developments this week I started eating sandwiches again. It seems like the front teeth are a lot more sturdy now and it's easier to bite through things.

Week 9 - Powerchains progress

10/12/10----------------------------------------------11/2/10

Since I got my lovely silver powerchains three weeks ago, there has been some progress in closing the gaps, but it's been a lot slower than it was with the wire powerchains. If I look at the pic from 10/12 and then the one from 11/2, then click to enlarge and look back and forth again, I do see SOME progress. It seems like the gap between the front teeth has closed slightly and the gaps between the front teeth and the lateral incisors have definitely closed up a bit, but where's the drama? When I look back on my old blog posts, I predicted teeth closed by September, then end of October and now? I'm hoping for Janaury. :) My birthday is coming up in three weeks, but I don't think it'll be no more gaps as a present. Perhaps I'll kick off 2011 gap free??

8 weeks of braces

Week 0----------------------Week 5---------------------Week 8




Front view



Left side




Right side

Overall, the gaps have diminished quite a bit and I have become less self-conscious of my teeth. My smile is starting to seem more normal and I now feel like I look more Lauren Hutton and less hillbilly. :) I can feel that my teeth are moving - particularly at night. They are especially tingly between the front two teeth although there hasn't been any further reduction in my front teeth gap since the wire powerchains came off.

Eating has improved, but I still can't bite anything off with my front teeth. They are far too sensitive! Sandwiches are either ripped apart or approached with a knife and fork.

Fortunately, there are a lot of great products out there to make caring for braces a a snap. Below is my dream team:

• Waterpik Ultra Water Flosser -even has an attachment for braces! 10 speeds that won't let you down.


• Crest Glide Threader Floss - accept no imitations! This is the easiest floss to use and won't fall apart.


• Dentakit Brace Survival Kit - perfect for keeping teeth clean on the go.


• Ortho pro orthodontic toothbrush - makes cleaning teeth super easy! You have to get it on Dentakit.com

Silver power chains!

10-12-10 New grille with silver powerchains



10/11/10 - Wires out before the dentist



10/12/10 Up close - first day in powerchains

The past two days have been really busy tooth-wise. Yesterday, I went to the ortho in the morning to have the wires taken out to prepare for my dental cleaning. I had a pokey wire that I had been a bit lazy about getting cut so it was nice to have the wires out. Plus, I got a chance to dust off my regular floss for the day.

The dentist and hygenist were both super excited that I had taken action to get my jaw alignment issues taken care of. They couldn't believe how much wider my palate was. They took a bunch of x-rays and it was neat to see how the bone is filling in. For the cleaning itself, I was a bit nervous that I would have a lot of plaque build-up because of the braces, but the hygentist said my gums were really healthy and actually looked much better than they did in April. I thought it had to do with all the extra brushing I have been doing with my braces. The hygentist suggested that I purchase a waterpik and start using straws to prevent staining. The dentist recommended that I come in every four months for a cleaning.

To take my cleaning to the next level, I purchased a high-end waterpik from Amazon.com. I had cheaper one before, but the water presssure was too much and after a few months the device was moldy. This new one has 10 different settings! I think that'll be a lot better for my second surgery. I also bought some straws to help avoid staining from my daily blueberry smoothie.

This morning, I got up to make it to the ortho 5 minutes before my appointment at 7:00 AM. Since I was few minutes early, I waited outside with a couple of other adults who had also scheduled 7 AM appointments. It reminded me that I'm not the only 'grown-up' out there going through orthodonture. After I got into the office, I wrote my name on the board and sat in the waiting room. 15 minutes went by and they still hadn't called my name. I went up to the front desk and asked them about my appointment. I was told, "Heather, your appointment is at 7:30." On snap! I got confused because I scheduled my next dentist appointment yesterday for 7 AM. Too bad I had 7 AM on the brain—it would have been nice to get a few extra zzzz's this morning!

I had very good news from the orthodontist. The bottom teeth are already in a perfect arch. The next step is to just to move some of the teeth individually into the correct alignment. The top teeth have moved enough that they can now use a heavier wire and powerchains to close the spaces all at once. Powerchains are a string of ligatures that pull all the teeth togther. This was pretty exciting news! I thought I was going to be dealing with the gaps for a lot longer. Since this morning, the gaps are already starting to close up. The ones between my front teeth and lateral incisiors look a lot smaller than yesterday—you can see the difference between the picture with wires and the one without.

The only thing with the powerchains is that since they move the teeth quickly it causes a lot of soreness. I can feel a lot of pressure in my mouth. I haven't taken any ibuprofen today, but I will load up before I go to bed. As they say—no pain, no gain. :)

Gap closing in!

Wax On


Wax Off



Day 2------------------------Day 15-----------------------------Day 29


It's been almost a month since the braces were put on and you can see that the teeth have moved quite a bit. The front gap is now at 2 mm. Very soon, my front teeth will touch again. It's pretty exciting stuff from where I'm sitting!

Overall things have been going well. I'm keeping myself busy and pampering myself so that I don't focus in on my mouth (as you can see I've got straight hair!). I'm encouraged by the progress and am staying focused on the positive. The past month just flew by and before I know it, this experience will be behind me. In the meantime, I'm working on forgetting that I even have braces on and am enjoying some of the perks - like having to get three pair of paints taken in. For the most part the braces don't bother me except when I try to eat too much food at one time. If I do that, my cheeks that a beating.