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.
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