First Week of Braces

Wow, I do not remember braces hurting me this much 15 years ago.  I have been in real pain.  I haven't eaten much that needs chewing.  I guess it's preparing me for my 6 week surgery recovery.

Tuesday and Wednesday were days 2-3 and I basically felt like someone kicked me in the mouth. My teeth and gums hurt, and the inside of my mouth was all torn up from the braces brushing against it.

Thursday (Day 4 of braces) was Thanksgiving.  I was starting to feel a little better.  I was still in pain, but luckily mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, & stuffing don't need much chewing!!

Today was Friday, and I definitely felt better than yesterday.  I'd say I'm about 70% there.  It really does take about a week to get used to the braces and for the pain to subside.  I was only expecting a little soreness for one day, but it was much worse than that!!

My advice to anyone getting braces would be:

1. Eat lots of crunchy good before because you won't be able to chew hard stuff for a week.

2. Stock up on yogurt, applesauce, smoothie ingredients, pasta, soup, etc.  I ate pasta with olive oil for 3 days straight because I barely had to chew it.

3. Make sure you have ibuprofen.

4. Keep cold drinks and foods like ice cream around.  The ortho told me my wires are temperature sensitive and cold things help with the pain.

5. Wax!  It's a must.  I put it on all my "hot spots."

6. Chapstick. Also a must.

7. Mouthwash helps because flossing and brushing still hurt.

I have more to post about, but I'll try to space it out some.  I've got 7 weeks until my next Ortho appointment!

Night!

Braces are on

I went through with it.  I had my braces put on this morning.

The process was so/so.  I had to lay on the dental chair with my head back for about an hour so of course that sucked.  I kept feeling like I was choking on my saliva in the back of my throat.  Also, they used this UV light thing on each tooth and I had a spit sucker in the whole time so my tongue was super dry in there.  It felt like a little fishy that jumped out of the tank!  Anyways, after about an hour the bracket part was done so I could sit up and rinse.  Then she put on the wires, ligatures, etc.  Last thing she did was explain how to care for them and had the doc check me out.

I go back in 8 weeks for my next appointment.  My goal is to have the surgery in Oct. 2014.  They gave me an estimate of 10 months of braces prior to surgery, which would put me at the end of Sept. 2014.  It seems they are always late on those things though.  I guess we'll see.

As for the braces, they feel really weird.  Eating felt weird.  I had a big lunch (they told me too) and by dinner I was starting to hurt.  The pain is even worse now.  They are just really sore and also scraping up the insides of my gums in certain spots.  I finally caved and stopped trying to be tough girl, so I put some wax on and took 2 Advil.  I hope I can sleep tonight.  He said my peak pain would be tomorrow at around noon.  So that's always nice to look forward to.

I didn't get to go to the gym today, but I'm planning to go tomorrow morning.  I just hope I'm not in too much pain.  I'm going to my 7-year-old's school tomorrow for "Special Adult Visitor Day."  She told me she's going to tell everyone I'm her older sister since I have braces.  

Without further ado, here's my braceface.

After looking at this picture, it seems I sort of have a cross bite too?!?!

You were probably wondering if I was going to get ceramic. Shit yes I did!  They waived the extra fee since I'm in two weddings next summer :)

Here's a pic of me without my tongue pressed against my teeth.  You can see my "open bite" here.

That's how my teeth look when I bite down all the way.  There's a crack between them that makes it very hard to bite food.  

Also, I did take some before pics today so I'll post them when I have a chance!  

It's B Day

I'm nervous.  My appointment is at 10:10 am, and they said it would take about 2 hours total including them explaining how to care for the braces.

I'm blogging through the iphone app.  I just wanted to record how I'm feeling today so hopefully when these suckers come off, I'll think "how silly that I was so nervous."

The good thing is that I'm married and my husband has assured me that he loves me no matter what.  He thinks I will regret it if I DON'T go through with this.  The other good thing is that I don't work outside of the home right now, so I don't have to worry about how this will affect me professionally.  Basically my kids and hubby are the ones who will have to look at me everyday.  LOL

I think it's just going to be hard to look in the mirror at first!  

Alright I'll update later today or tomorrow about how the appointment goes.

Open Bite Surgery Explanation in Pictures

I wasn't going to do a post today, but I came across a video that explained the surgery.  I was able to screen shot some images to sort of explain it here on the blog.



My "diagnosis" is open bite, which means that when I bite down, my front teeth do not touch.  That's why I have trouble eating things like pizza and sandwiches.  I usually use a knife and fork for pizza and when I eat sandwiches, I pull a piece off and put it into my mouth and chew it with my molars.  Honestly, I always thought these were just weird quirks about me.  I never realized the reason I have these habits is because of my bite.  I have a lot of other symptoms that are caused by my open bite.  I have an issue where I always feel like I'm choking on my food.  I feel like I have to chew my food for 2 minutes before swallowing.  Also, I have an episode at least every other day where I feel like I've tried to swallow a piece of food that is too big, and I sort of gag and cough it up.  It's kind of embarrassing.  I've always been a really slow eater, and now I know why.  In restaurants, I take FOREVER to eat because I just don't want to gag at the table, lol.  Also, I  have trouble breathing sometimes, mostly when I'm working out.  I always thought I was just out of shape, but looking at my anatomy, I see how the open bite contributes to this also.  Both of these things have to do with the position of my lower jaw, and how it makes the opening of my throat about half the size that it should be.  When I get my x-rays, I'll be able to show you what I mean.

Anyways, here's what my bite looks like.  Mine is much more subtle than this, the opening is only a crack, not an inch like in the photo below.

 

 

During the jaw surgery, the surgeon will go in through my mouth, and cut a wedge (the blue area in the photo below) out of my jaw.

 

So this (below) will be my jaw after the wedge is removed.

 

Then the bottom half of my top jaw will be brought up to connect with the top half.  That will allow my bottom jaw to come up much farther than it does now, to form a classic bite.

 

 

The jaw will be secured with pins and screws. 

1st Oral Surgeon Appointment

My first appointment with the oral surgeon was this past Thursday, 11/21/13.  He was a nice guy, and the office staff was super friendly and accommodating.  I had to bring the baby with me because they had to reschedule my original appointment (11/20) and I had no babysitter (aka: husband) home at the time of the new appointment.  Anywho, they were all really friendly with the baby and talked about how good and cute she was and didn't make me feel like a total idiot for bringing an infant to an oral surgeon's office.

At the appointment, he went over what the orthodontist had already told me, except he added in that he *might* also have to do something with my lower jaw.  He said I am such a fine line between upper and lower jaw that he won't know for sure until the end.  Most likely it will just be the upper though.  I hope it's just the upper.  He said it could be an outpatient surgery where I would leave the same day, or it will be a "23 hour stay" so I stay the night after surgery and go home the next morning.  Honestly, I'm not sure which I prefer.  At first I was all for the outpatient so I could be home with my kids.  But from what I'm gathering from other folks who have had this surgery, I'll be pretty out of it.  I sort of think I may feel more at ease under a nurse's supervision for the night.  I guess whatever he decides will be for the best in the end.

The worst news of the whole appointment is that he wants to remove my two wisdom teeth in 4 months.  He said he needs them out at least 6 months prior to surgery, so I set up my appointment for 3/11/14.  I know this is not a big deal to most people, but I know it's going to affect breastfeeding.  My baby will only be 11-months-old.  I am hoping that I will be able to just go one day without feeding her.  I know I'm getting IV sedation, but I'm not sure how long that stays in my system and in my milk.  Also, I'm hoping I can get away with just taking a little ibuprofen during the recovery.  I'll just pump and dump for the day to keep my supply up.  That means I really, really need to make sure that the baby is super comfortable taking bottles, because it is going to break my heart to hear her hungry and know that I can't feed her.  I kept asking him what kind of medications I would be getting and I told him the reason for my concern was that I'm still nursing the baby.  He said, "Well this will be in 4 months, how old is she now?"  Silly Doc!  I've sort of made peace with the fact that it's happening and I'm just planning for March.  I have plenty of pumped milk, plus Cora will be eating a lot of food by then, I assume.  I guess only time will tell.  If you know me, you know that I'm a big planner and organizer and I stress about stuff like this, so it sucks.  I have one upper right wisdom tooth and one lower left tooth.  He said he absolutely needs to remove the upper since he's operating on the upper jaw.  He said he wants to remove the lower too in case he decides to operate on the lower jaw.  He'd rather do them both at once, and I agree with that.

The rest of the appointment he explained my bite problems and told me that I'm compensating for the jaw malformation by doing something with my lower jaw.  I don't know exactly what, he just kept manipulating my lower jaw into the position it should be in.  It hurt a lot in my TMJ area when he did that.  I don't know what that means???

Now that I'm home I've thought of a million other questions and I have been super duper nervous.  But that's a post for another day.

Monday is B day.  Braces day. Ugh.  I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend eating popcorn and chewing gum.  If I can, I'll get some copies of X-rays and photos on Monday to help explain my situation and so you can follow my progress.

The Beginning

I'm a 27-year-old wife and mother, and I'm about to get braces and go through orthognathic surgery to correct an open bite jaw issue.  I'm going to share my story and show my progress on this blog.  I hope it will help someone else!


This all started several years ago when I went to see an orthodontist.  I had just gotten a "real" job and decided I wanted invisalign to straighten my teeth.  My teeth are fairly straight, but my canine teeth stick out a little.  I had braces when I was 11-12, but since then I had a wisdom tooth grow in on my top right side.  That has caused some crowding, and my right canine sticks out a little.  Other than that, my teeth looked pretty straight to me.  I figured I'd get invisalign and in a few months, I'd have a perfect smile.  Sweet! 

At the appointment they took a lot of pictures and x-rays.  Then the orthodontist sat down with me to discuss everything.  "We have a problem here," she said.  "I understand you are concerned about the aesthetics and the slight crowding, but you have a more serious issue involving your jaw."  HUH???  "Your jaw is misaligned, and you have an open bite.  This cannot be treated with invisalign.  You will need braces and surgery."  SAY WHAT?!?!?!?!  I cried.  I left the appointment in tears.  At that time I couldn't commit to the braces and surgery.  I was planning to go back to school in the fall.  I was already a single mom to my then 3-year-old daughter.  I didn't have any extra time or money to deal with it.  So, I put it off to the side at the time, and decided I'd go through with everything when I finished nursing school.

I graduated nursing school about 18 months later, but in the meantime, I'd gotten engaged!  I definitely didn't want braces at my wedding, so I put it off some more.  When we got married, we decided to wait one year before trying to have a baby.  I wouldn't have enough time to complete my treatment and get the surgery before that year was up, and I certainly couldn't have surgery while I was pregnant, so it got pushed off again.

Then, about 2 months ago, my husband and I went in for a regular dental check-up.  The dentist addressed my issues and told me that she would recommend me getting an orthodontist's opinion.  I decided that I really wanted to get a second opinion too.   A few days later I visited another orthodontist for a consultation.  They did the same work-up as the first time.  Lots of pictures.  Lots of x-rays.  Then the orthodontist came into the room, and told me the same exact thing that the previous one had said.  BUMMER.  I didn't cry this time, because I pretty much knew it was coming, but it still stung a little.  This time, he explained the timeline of how the treatment would go, as well as showing me x-rays of my jaw.  He even had a little video thing that showed which part of my jaw would have to be removed and how it would fix the problem.

After that appointment, I realized that it was kind of a now or never situation.  If I get the treatment now, my baby will be about 18-months-old at the time of surgery.  Even though I plan on breastfeeding until she's two, I know I'll be able to give her pumped milk and "pump and dump" for a few days following my surgery while I'm on any medications.  I wouldn't feel comfortable having the surgery any sooner, with her being any younger than 18 months. (The soonest I could have had the surgery would have been August when she's 16 months, and I'm in weddings in August and September, so those months were out anyways).  I also don't want to wait too much longer, because we probably will have one more baby.  I can't have the surgery while pregnant, so I need to do it before my baby gets too much older.

So, as much as this is going to suck, I have to bite the bullet (pun intended) and begin the treatment to correct my open bite.