Sunday 11 July 2010

Day 64 - Hazy lazy summer dazey

Just a quick newsflash to report that the nerves in my upper jaw seem to be awakening! As noted in earlier posts, I woke up from surgery with no feeling whatsoever in my upper gums and palete - my toothbrush felt like it literally disappeared when I cleaned along my uppers . Since then there have been intermittent shooting tingles and fizzles, but nothing like normal sensations.

In the last few days however, things seem to be happening. It started with the roof of my mouth suddenly feeling cold, then another new feeling that was a bit like champagne bubbles fizzing upwards - I was delighted! Now when I try the 'toothbrush test' the roof of my mouth reacts with a strange zinging sensation, not yet normal, but feeling nonetheless. My surgeon warned me not to expect to feel anything up there for months so it's great to get some feeling so soon, hopefully this means the same will happen in the gums pretty soon.

As for external numbness, I still have a patch covering my lower left lip down to my chin. The behaviour of the nerves here is even stranger - when I run my finger along the edge of my chin tingles shoot upwards into my lip. It's not remotely painful, in fact I find myself absentmindedly stroking this patch whenever i'm thinking things over..

Next ortho appt is August 11th when I hope to get these finishing wires on. Planning to spend as much time as possible between now and then lounging on picnic blankets soaking up these glorious sunny days - we don't usually get many of them around here!

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Day 60 - 2 months in

2 months...is that all? It feels so much longer!

Went to see my surgeon this week for a check-up. After a quick poke about he told me there had been no adverse movement, muscular issues or skeletal complications whatsoever, and commented that it was almost as though the jaws were destined to be in their new positions. I couldn't have put it better myself! He also told me not to come in again until my brace is removed - so it seems i'm basically done and dusted with him. Surgery has been on my horizon for so long that it now feels strange for it not to be there any more, almost as though something is missing...

I also saw my ortho, who can always be relied upon to find more issues to deal with, and thus he delivered, pointing out that my two upper back molars on one side had shifted slightly into a crossbite position and would require elastics. He's attached extra brackets on the back of the molars and has the elastics running from the back of the uppers to the front of the lowers directly below. Whilst this didn't seem to be a major issue, I don't know if this still means we'll hit the 'autumn' debracing target date.

The elastics arn't visible though, which is great news as it's summer festival season here and i'm off to the secret garden party in about 2 weeks with Sizzle. Didn't want a mess of rubber getting in the way of my weekend of drunken debauchery :) The festival has the dress up theme of "fact or fiction" - wonder what outfit I could choose to represent an orthodontist's predicted timeline? (always works of fiction without a doubt!)