Alarums and excursions! Finally beaten my ortho into submission and got a rock solid non-negotiable no-going-back debracing date. It is...(drum roll)... December 21st! However this is dependent on me going for TWO adjustments between now and then (since recovering from surgery i've started forgetting the odd appointment, something that would NEVER have happened pre-surg), and if I miss one it will certainly be Christmas dinner no 3 with braces. So I will be good.
So what is there left to do? Well, very little as far as I can tell, but according to Dr H my teeth are still a fraction away from his gold standard, so some 'detailing' is being carried out. Fair enough.
During tonight's appointment the assistant was having tremendous problems opening up some of the brackets, and came out with "oh these brackets really have had enough", to which I immediately responded "yes, like me!" (or as close as you can get to that with someone's fingers in your mouth") and jabbed wildly towards my chest. She didn't laugh...
Sorry for the shortness of the post, just about to go on holiday for a fortnight after a wildly busy few weeks, but look forward to catching up with my fellow ortho-bloggers in Dec :)
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Frustrations!
My 6 month milestone is looming :) I'll post a full physical/sensation/swelling etc rundown once the day itself arrives for any detail-hungry fiends out there, but for the moment i'll content myself with saying that i'm 99% happy with how things are going.
The remaining 1% relates not to any surgery matters but to my ortho, as it seems i'm not NOT getting my braces off next month after all! In the last few appointment he's fussed over details, moved various brackets, and generally moaned about the position of one tooth after another. This has resulted in gaps opening all over the place, and at one point I had to endure 3 weeks of a huge gaping hole between my front teeth (looks good on Lara Stone but not on me!). Now he's announced that November removal might not be possible after all, and his assistant said she'd book me appointments through January "just in case". Friggin January???
To top it all he was poking around during my last appoint and, apropos of nothing, came out with "you should really have your wisdom teeth out". Errrr...what? "They're difficult to keep clean and don't connect with anything anymore so you might like to consider removing them" (I only have 2 on the bottom). Now i'm no dentist but i'm pretty sure that if they REALLY needed to come out he should have said something about 6 months ago when I had that little procedure thingy? Havn't I had enough dental torture or something? After he'd left I moaned to his assistant about all this and the time it was taking to complete treatment, and all she had to say was "Well, Dr H is quite a perfectionist". He may be but I clearly am not. My teeth look absolutely perfect now, even if one or two at the back are a fraction of a milimetre away from the holy grail of perfect tooth alignment then I really couldn't give a monkeys. It's been two years, i've had enough - I want out!
So, my next appt is at the end of the month and I plan to spell it out loud and clear! First, i'll be saying a big fat no to wisdom teeth removal. If these pose a problem in the future maybe, but I want to go back to life outside of dental work for a while. Second, I want my brace off by Christmas, no ifs no buts. I've had enough of him umming and aahing every time I remind him of the the november finish date so no more playing silly buggers with my teeth! Any backchat and i'll threaten to stop flossing his handywork in protest - playing dirty (quite literally!) may be the only language these orthos understand :D
The remaining 1% relates not to any surgery matters but to my ortho, as it seems i'm not NOT getting my braces off next month after all! In the last few appointment he's fussed over details, moved various brackets, and generally moaned about the position of one tooth after another. This has resulted in gaps opening all over the place, and at one point I had to endure 3 weeks of a huge gaping hole between my front teeth (looks good on Lara Stone but not on me!). Now he's announced that November removal might not be possible after all, and his assistant said she'd book me appointments through January "just in case". Friggin January???
To top it all he was poking around during my last appoint and, apropos of nothing, came out with "you should really have your wisdom teeth out". Errrr...what? "They're difficult to keep clean and don't connect with anything anymore so you might like to consider removing them" (I only have 2 on the bottom). Now i'm no dentist but i'm pretty sure that if they REALLY needed to come out he should have said something about 6 months ago when I had that little procedure thingy? Havn't I had enough dental torture or something? After he'd left I moaned to his assistant about all this and the time it was taking to complete treatment, and all she had to say was "Well, Dr H is quite a perfectionist". He may be but I clearly am not. My teeth look absolutely perfect now, even if one or two at the back are a fraction of a milimetre away from the holy grail of perfect tooth alignment then I really couldn't give a monkeys. It's been two years, i've had enough - I want out!
So, my next appt is at the end of the month and I plan to spell it out loud and clear! First, i'll be saying a big fat no to wisdom teeth removal. If these pose a problem in the future maybe, but I want to go back to life outside of dental work for a while. Second, I want my brace off by Christmas, no ifs no buts. I've had enough of him umming and aahing every time I remind him of the the november finish date so no more playing silly buggers with my teeth! Any backchat and i'll threaten to stop flossing his handywork in protest - playing dirty (quite literally!) may be the only language these orthos understand :D
Saturday, 18 September 2010
The final innings
4 and a half months-the finish line is looming :)
To pick up where I left off, I finally got to my ortho's office to show off the dirty great chasms that have opened up between my teeth. This lead to much furrowing of brows, scratching of heads and general "that wasn't supposed to happen" type statements, with the final diagnosis of cause being....sometimes teeth just move. Hmmm thanks for that technical summary!
Dr H. has now lashed a chain accross my uppers and told me the gaps would be gone in a jiffy, though it's been several weeks now and they're only moving very slowly (which is all the more suprising as the gaps appeared virtually overnight!). My next appointment is on Thursday when i'm due to get my finishing wires on, and will find out if i'm still on track for a November debracing. Hope the unexpected gaps won't cause this date to be revised..
The jaw-clicking I mentioned in my previous post has turned out to be a non-issue. I got in touch with my surgeon who assured me that recovering jaws often go through clicky periods, and not to worry. Since then i've only had the odd clicking moments but other than that, all seems fine! Upper palette sensation continues to return, albeit in a mashed up type of way, and I can still see a small amount of swelling either side of my nose in the mornings and after hot showers.
So all in all the long winding road that is jaw surgery is seems to be nearing its end, hope all of you out there still with some way to go are doing well, it WILL be worth it in the end!
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Picture update
Three and a half months in! Was at V Festival this weekend dodging the showers and enjoying the music. As you can see the residual swelling - which isn't supposed to be gone until next spring - really isn't in evidence any more, I only really notice anything when i'm just out of bed first thing in the morning when there is a touch of swelling going on.I'm off to my ortho on Wednesday and can't wait to speak to them about these enormous gaps that have appeared and my clicking jaw, which occurs every other day or so when eating or cleaning. Will report back!
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Day ....?
I have finally lost count of the days since surgery!
It's past 3 months now, so I must be around the 100 day mark somewhere, but I don't know and am not planning to work it out. Somehow it doesn't feel very important any more...
So as you can tell by the drop off in postings, life has very much returned to normal. Not only do I feel my old self, but surgery now seems like some strange dream that never really happened. You'd think that the enormity of the whole experience would leave some sort of permanent mark, but it seems that my mind has preferred to wrap it up in a nice little package and tuck it away somewhere. This is helped by the fact that i'm busy with my new job, with colleagues who only met me a few weeks ago and arn't even aware that I had something done - as far as they're concerned i've always looked this way (a fact I still find quite mind blowing). In fact the more I look at it, the more I see that for the past 2 years all my plans had more or less revolved around surgery, and with that obstacle removed my thoughts are free to flow in new and interesting directions. No wonder no-one wants to dwell on it.
Having said that, i'm planning to document this whole process until the REAL end of the journey i.e. DEBRACING DAY, and there's plenty to keep me occupied until then. Latest developments to report are that my jaw has developed an strange click on the right side, usually when i've just eaten or brushed. I'm not particularly bothered by this, but will probably go along to Mr T's if it doesn't disappear in a couple of weeks. I'm also still getting the odd moment when I look in the mirror and think I look a little strange, but these are few and far between, and are probably more related to my mood than anything facial. On top of this i've developed huge gaps on each side of my front teeth, not sure what the purpose of these are so i'm looking forward to bending my orthodontist's ear about it in a fortnight. He promised me an autumn debracing so that's what i'm getting, whether he likes it or not!
It's past 3 months now, so I must be around the 100 day mark somewhere, but I don't know and am not planning to work it out. Somehow it doesn't feel very important any more...
So as you can tell by the drop off in postings, life has very much returned to normal. Not only do I feel my old self, but surgery now seems like some strange dream that never really happened. You'd think that the enormity of the whole experience would leave some sort of permanent mark, but it seems that my mind has preferred to wrap it up in a nice little package and tuck it away somewhere. This is helped by the fact that i'm busy with my new job, with colleagues who only met me a few weeks ago and arn't even aware that I had something done - as far as they're concerned i've always looked this way (a fact I still find quite mind blowing). In fact the more I look at it, the more I see that for the past 2 years all my plans had more or less revolved around surgery, and with that obstacle removed my thoughts are free to flow in new and interesting directions. No wonder no-one wants to dwell on it.
Having said that, i'm planning to document this whole process until the REAL end of the journey i.e. DEBRACING DAY, and there's plenty to keep me occupied until then. Latest developments to report are that my jaw has developed an strange click on the right side, usually when i've just eaten or brushed. I'm not particularly bothered by this, but will probably go along to Mr T's if it doesn't disappear in a couple of weeks. I'm also still getting the odd moment when I look in the mirror and think I look a little strange, but these are few and far between, and are probably more related to my mood than anything facial. On top of this i've developed huge gaps on each side of my front teeth, not sure what the purpose of these are so i'm looking forward to bending my orthodontist's ear about it in a fortnight. He promised me an autumn debracing so that's what i'm getting, whether he likes it or not!
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!
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!)
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!)
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