2 weeks out!

Fast update.

No more rubber bands, still have a little swelling, all the stitches in my mouth but a few have dissolved/fallen out.

Told you it was fast! There's just not much to say. I had an appointment on Friday that lasted all of 5 minutes because everything is healing so well. I have another appointment next Friday, and in about 2 weeks I see the orthodontist for the first time. I'll still have the splint in, so I'm guessing he's just going to see how things look.

Diet's been going pretty well, I still can't chew but I'm getting creative. I still have the expander thingy on my upper teeth, and I've been pushing food against that and the back of my splint with my tongue to 'chew' it. I've had pancakes, muffins, even the beef from a roast beef sandwich from Arby's! All chopped up into tiny pieces, but still. On a related note, I've gained back all the weight I lost in the first week. I didn't even think it was possible to lose/gain weight so fast... I went from 115 to 105 to 115 again in the space of 2 weeks. I'm totally crossing off jaw surgery from my list of possible diet plans.

A picture from yesterday... Nothing's changed much since I took it. There's still more swelling on the right side than on the left. It's annoying, but I'd feel bad for complaining since everything else has gone so well. I feel completely normal again, other than the swelling and the fact that I have a new bite/jaw. The other day I reached up to scratch my nose, and whacked myself in the chin! It's sort of like getting a haircut after having long hair for years and years.

Today I was looking through a bunch of pictures, and I found a few from about a year ago that I took of my profile.. So sometime this week I'm thinking of putting together a nice new before and after post. I'd like to find the pictures of my teeth from before braces first though, I know I have them around here somewhere.

Aaaanyway, I think I might have gone a little longer than a 'fast' update. Whoops.

Argh.

So my computer killed itself. That's why I haven't been posting... GREAT timing, huh. Oh well, I didn't have all that much to say anyway, it's been uneventful.

So it's been one week since surgery, and I finally feel like a human being today. My swelling has gone down enough so that I look normal in the left side of my face, but I still have a lot on the right side. It's not all the way down on the left side, but the majority of it is inside my mouth rather than on my face.

On Friday I saw the surgeon, and he said that everything looks great. I'm allowed to take off my rubber bands for eating/brushing, and he said it's okay to stop taking the ibuprofen if I don't need it now. That was the best part of it, because I did stop taking it and I soon discovered that ibuprofen was the thing causing all of my nausea. While I was taking it, my stomach was killing me all the time and I couldn't eat anything that wasn't completely plain and bland. At one point I blended up plain tofu and ate it with a spoon, heh.

The worst news of the visit was that I will be having the splint in for the entire 6 weeks that I can't chew for. I can't even imagine how gross it will be when they take it out... But by next week I should be allowed to keep the rubber bands off during the daytime. I have to admit, I haven't been doing too well with the rubber bands... Eating such small meals so often makes it hard to replace them every time! They're not being used to change my midline, though; and my teeth fit into the splint normally when I'm not in the bands. I'm not doing TOO horribly, right?

Right?!

Ah well.

Tomorrow I'm having the stitches (on the outside) taken out, I'm hoping the surgeon will have the time to check out my mouth too. The incision on the right side has been bleeding a bit, not a ton but I think a stitch might have torn a little. Other than that, everything's great: I have most of my normal energy back, I'm sleeping better, I'm slowly learning to talk with this giant piece of plastic in my mouth... So, picture time.


This is day 6, I think this was the point where my swelling slooooooooowly started to decrease.








Day 8, today. I know I said it's been a week which is 7 days, but I figured that I had my surgery early enough in the morning to count the first day as well.








Aaaand the profile. I think I'm happier with it than I was before, I still don't have much of a chin but it's not ENTIRELY unattractive now. I have a feeling that when the swelling goes down I am going to go through a phase of keeping mirrors around at all times, ha. I'm starting to feel like I look normal (even with the lopsided face), which is totally new to me.

Okay, some pictures.

It's actually kind of hard to get a picture that shows the swelling well, a lot of it is under my neck. But, here is a picture from day 2:



A profile shot from day 2:

(I know it's really too early to think about this, but I can't help but wonder if a genioplasty was something I should have asked the surgeon to consider more)

Aaaand a picture from this morning (day 4):




The swelling has gone up a little bit, but since this afternoon it's started to go down some. I'm hoping it will go down a little more before tomorrow, as I have to venture out into public for my first post-op visit to the surgeon. Hopefully he'll change the configurations of my rubber bands, they keep breaking! The right one has broken 3 times today. I've been given a bunch of extras so I can put them back on, but it's really annoying having to do so every few hours.

I'm still having problems with the nausea, it's the worst in the morning. Because of that I've been mostly sticking to liquids, even though technically I'm allowed to eat anything that I don't have to chew at this point. It's killing me to not be able to have a piece of toast or something to help my stomach right now!

I am alive!

About 55 hours post op and feeling disturbingly good. My computer's being a butt right now so I can't post pictures yet, but I do have some.

So I got to the hospital, sleep deprived but right on time. It took a while of waiting before I got to the pre-surgery room, but after that everything went FAST. The OS came in and made sure my splint fit, then the anesthesia person came in and put the IV in my hand. A few minutes after that, someone gave me something in my IV (he said it would make me not care about anything, didn't quite do that but it was very cool nonetheless) and not but 5 minutes later was I in the OR with an oxygen mask over my face.

I don't remember much from coming out of it, the first thing I remember was drinking some apple juice, out of a cup, and not spilling any. Woah. I could feel most of my bottom lip! Soon after, I realize that I have no rubber bands on. The surgeon told me that the operation should take 3-4 hours, but it only took 2 and a half! Everything went perfectly.

Well, not ALL perfectly. I did end up puking up some blood, and my swelling is HORRIBLE. You know those people who come out of surgery looking at least semi-normal? No way, not here, I look like a toad. So far, the major problems I've been having are nausea, swelling, and tiredness. Of course, being tired doesn't mean you'll actually fall asleep at night or anything crazy like that. So I was pretty much tired for the entire first and second day.

I came home on day 2, I think around 11 am. THEN I got to sleep.

So, here's where I am right now: They put in 2 rubber bands on the second day, so I have those now, but they're pretty light. I can open my mouth nearly a finger's width (which, incidentally, is juuuust too small to fit a normal spoon in). Parts of my face are sort of numb, but nothing is 100% numb, which is awesome. The swelling is terrible, but it's not really going up anymore, so hopefully I won't have it for too long.

I'll post some pictures this evening or tomorrow. I was almost surprised that my dog recognized me when I got home.

Today!

Today is the day. I tried to get some sleep, but that didn't work out so well.. I'd have to get up in about 3 hours anyway. I have to be there at 5 AM, but the annoying thing is knowing that I'll probably end up sitting around and waiting for hours and hours.

The other most annoying part of this is not being able to eat or drink after 12. My last meal ended up being McDonalds... Ha. I know I'll regret that. Not being able to use conditioner is pretty bad too... I can't imagine conditioner actually affecting anything.

Anyway, have some terrible last pictures. Excuse the bad hair day!




It's surprisingly hard to get a good picture of your own teeth, but I suppose this shows them well enough:




So, I'll make a new post when I get back from the hospital. Hopefully I'll be able to convince my parents to take a picture of me when I'm right out of surgery, hah. This is the only time I've ever been excited to see myself look horrible. For now I'm going to go pack my bag and lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling until it's time to leave! When I return I'll have a brand new face.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhh

2 days left!

I had my pre-op on Tuesday, it was pretty uneventful. I did learn a few things...

• I will be having a splint, I can't recall exactly for how long, but it was at least for a week. Not sure how that's going to fit in there with the expander thing in.
• My overjet is 1 centimeter! For some reason that sounds so much bigger than 10 millimeters.
• My lower midline is off by 1mm.
• No plan for genioplasty right now, which is fine. If it really looks like I need it, I can always get it done someday far off in the future, right? Right.

Today (technically yesterday... Why am I posting this at 1 am?) I had the pre-anethesia appointment, which was basically just papers and papers and papers. Not to be rude or anything, but Willford Hall doesn't seem to be very... Organized. Some of the forms that the surgeon was supposed to sign weren't signed yet, and a paper that my parents were supposed to sign at the pre-op was nowhere to be found. Eh, it'll work itself out in the end. There were similar issues at this hospital when I had my wisdom teeth out, and everything ended up fine then.

Surgery is Monday morning... Early Monday morning. I'll post here on Sunday evening then, maybe post some final pictures. In the mean time, I am going to eat all the beef jerky I can get my hands on.

Reeeally fast update, I've been pretty busy.

My pre-op has been postponed until Tuesday, but I got my surgical hooks put on yesterday. They're not that bad, I can't even feel most of them. Getting them put on took forever though, and after they were on, the ortho twisted a wire all along the brackets/archwire. I'm not sure what that's for, maybe just like a really strong powerchain so my teeth won't move at all? Anyway, when I got the hooks put on, I also had a bunch of impressions and xrays taken. Later in the evening the ortho called me and said that the top arch is barely a millimeter too narrow... So I have to go back in on Monday to have the expander put back in. Great. I'm assuming that since it's only a millimeter, it's just going to tip the teeth rather than pulling on my palate again. It's almost funny, there was a point a few months ago where my ortho thought that my upper arch would be TOO wide.

So on Monday I go to the ortho again, then on Tuesday is the pre op, then on Friday I have an appointment with the anethisiologist, and finally the surgery is on the following Monday. Sheeeesh.

1 month!

I haven't abandoned this! There just hasn't been anything to post about really... But today I had some x-rays taken, and I have a surgery date! October 27th, a little over a month from now. A tiny part of me hopes that I'll look awful enough to scare some kids on Halloween. Guess I'll have to miss the candy though. If I'm feeling up to it, maybe I'll pass out some jawbreakers to trick-or-treaters. Haaaa.

I've got a physical exam on October 14th and the pre-op on the 15th. I didn't get a lot of time to ask the surgeons many questions, but I did learn that I'll be on a no-chew diet for 6 weeks. Sounds like a pretty average amount of time... I'll know more after the pre-op.

I didn't have any impressions taken today, only the x-ray. My ortho said they'd want to take some today, but apparently they didn't. I asked! I still really have no idea what's going on.. On Thursday I get some impressions at the orthodontist, but usually he doesn't lend those to the surgeons and prefers that they take their own. Eh, we'll see. I guess that's probably what they do at the pre-op, anyway.

I also have to go see another doctor to see if he wants me to do some sort of allergy test before the surgery, because I've been allergic to the only 2 types of antibiotics that I've ever been on.

There's so much to do in the next month! At least there's a Dunkin' Donuts near the hospital.

Last wires!

I am now in my final wires before surgery. Dear God, the pain. In 4 weeks I go back to the ortho for one more set of impressions, and then the real fun starts. He said to expect the hospital to call soon to schedule their appointments for their sets of photos/impressions/etc. I probably shouldn't be looking forward to this as much as I am.

Isn't it funny how quickly teeth can move? Yesterday at this time, most of my back teeth would touch when I bit down.. Now only 2.5 of them do, both on the left side. (That .5 only touches barely). I guess I never noticed it before, but my bottom jaw is a little bit tilted to one side. Either way, I can't wait to get this over with. It's surprising how annoying it can be to eat with only 2 teeth touching.

Hello.

A little about me.

My name is Sarah, I'm 17, and for my whole life I've had an overbite. You learn to adapt to these things, it never seemed like too big of a problem. While my upper teeth were always nice and straight, the lowers were a different story. Teeth pushing against teeth pushing against teeth. I've known I needed braces ever since childhood, but I waited until I was nearly 16 to have the uppers (and the endlessly entertaining palate expander) put on... In preparation for lower jaw surgery.

One year later, 4 wisdom teeth and 2 premolars fewer; and teeth much straighter, here I am. My final wires go on in about 2 weeks, and then the wait begins. I'm hoping for the surgery to be scheduled within 1-2 months of that, but there's no way to predict yet.

Pictures! I have no pictures from before braces, but my ortho has some and I'll try to snag a copy from him before this is all through with. Click to enlarge.