I was just thinking...since I already wear a splint am I going to have the same kind of muscle tightness as everyone else who does after surgery? Yet another question for the dr. I can relate to everyone who has worn the dreaded splint. It is a pain in the a** to put it mildly. I think sometimes it hurts more than helps and am personally sick of wearing it. When I talk with it in I have a lisp, my teeth get sore, and sometimes I feel like I'm choking. And sometimes it makes my jaw hurt even more. My TMJ doc wants me to wear it when I eat but that is just impossible since with it in I have at least a 1/2 inch gap in my front teeth. Without it my front teeth don't even touch. I'm already on a soft-chew diet and have been for quite awhile. I have been craving a bagel with cream cheese...mmm that sounds SO good. Or to be able to eat certain foods without a fork would be nice. I just want to be able to eat whatever I want again. I don't even know if the surgery will help my jaw, but I'm praying it does. My TMJ doc can't tell me for sure but he thinks it will. So anyway, thanks for listening again to my complaints. My jaw hurts a lot today and I just needed to vent.

Not much to say today. Still the same ole same...jaw pain is starting to calm down finally and my teeth are not achy anymore. I've been keeping busy as much as possible so I don't think about the jaw pain but sometimes it's hard. I planted some tulips in flower pots last week and they're actually growing. I also started the demolition of our bathroom by tearing the tile off the walls. That was very therapeutic. My kids are on vacation until March 4th so they'll keep me busy which is nice. But, I'm sure I'll be glad to see them go back to school. Today is my husband's birthday so I made him a punch bowl cake which is his favorite and I will make him tuna casserole for his dinner. I bought him a boombox for his satellite radio; I already gave it to him and he loves it. I did our income taxes and we're getting a nice refund. We decided we will use the money towards remodelling our living room. This house is a fixer upper but we've done two rooms so far. Our biggest thing is going to be replacing the windows; they're original to the house and the house was built pre-civil war. We were told that the house has tunnels underneath it from the underground railroad which I think is pretty neat. We only have a partial basement and the rest is crawl space. So it's kind of difficult to get in there to see but we will check it out. Being an old house it has a lot of character and was well maintained and we got a good deal on it because it needed so much cosmetic work done. The walls all had wallpaper which I don't really care for unless it's pretty or in good shape. My husband remodel homes for a living plus he's self-employed so we can do the work when time and money allow us to. We do tend to argue a lot about we want to do as far as updates though, but in the end we always work it out. So anyway, I will talk to you all later, hopefully my next post will be more about braces.

Thank You

Well, I stand corrected...not everyone sees their oral surgeon a lot. I just wanted to apologize for making that assumption. Thanks so much for your comments. Just hearing from you puts my mind at ease. When you're preparing for a big surgery you expect everyone involved to be...well more involved. I had my wire changed yesterday (my teeth/jaw are very sore) and was able to ask my ortho some questions as well. He is a really awesome dr. and he put my mind at ease too. At my next appt he will do more molds/impressions and perform a mock surgery on them to be sure my teeth are ready for surgery. If they're not he said he'd make sure they were so the surgery doesn't have to be cancelled. He assured me we have plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments if need be. The only way surgery would be cancelled is if the oral surgeon decides he doesn't want to work that day. So, I'll keep my fingers crossed that everything will go smoothly and May 14th will be the day.
So anyway, had my wire changed yesterday to a bigger wire. The assistant had a hard time getting the old wire out and kept yanking on it til she finally got it out...jeesh. There were two teenagers in the chairs next to me looking pretty horrified. It felt great to have the wire out so I could floss without it. I also had the ties changed and the wire taken off the bottom so I could floss them too (my bottom teeth are done til after surgery). I now have something poking my right cheek and tearing it up. I really don't want to go back cause it's an hour away so I think I'll dig out the wax. I haven't had to use wax thus far so I'm not sure where I put it. My chin and cheekbones are sore today too for some reason. Well, my dog just came in with a piece of the living room floor in her mouth so I gotta go. Will talk to you all later.

Can't sleep so I thought I might as well post...so anyway, I have alot questions. I noticed that a lot of you have seen your oral surgeon quite a bit and actually speak to him/her on a regular basis. I'm a little worried because I've only seen mine once to have my wisdom teeth pulled last year! I won't see him again until one week before my surgery. Is this normal? I mean I know my orthodontist is communicating with him by sending records etc. but I would think that the surgeon would want to do his own pics and what not...right? Or will he do the molds etc. when I see him before the surgery? I have an appt with my ortho on Tues, so I'll ask. I guess I'm just not sure which doc does what. I was told the doc who's doing my surgery is very good, but I don't feel like he's communicating with me enough. I don't have a clue what's going to happen at the pre-op appt and when I ask nobody can tell me anything. I had to ask them whether or not I was having double jaw surgery. I only found out the end of January that I was having both jaws worked on. I don't know maybe I'm just over-reacting. Oh, and I was also wondering if any of you who had upper jaw surgery donated your own blood for the surgery and if it's really necessary to. I would rather be as prepared as possible but I don't want to over do it. I'm really starting to get nervous about this surgery and I've still got three months to go. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Smile...

I wanted to show everyone a picture of my dog. She had just come in and I asked her to smile and it looks like she did.

I feel a lot better today than I have in awhile. My jaw is still achey but nowhere near as bad as it has been. At least I can tolerate it (Yea!!). Happy Valentine's day everyone. I have nothing special planned. My husband usually gets me flowers. I wasn't able to get him anything cause I can't get anywhere (I don't drive because I'm legally blind; a condition known as Usher's Syndrome; aka Helen Keller's disease. I wear hearing aids too). So, I think I'll just cook him a really nice dinner. My daughter stayed home from school today sick (sinus infection I think). She's twelve so they don't do the Valentine's cards anymore.

I should probably explain what Usher's syndrome is so you don't have to search the web for it. I have a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa with hearing loss (Usher's Syndrome). I have lost most of my peripheral (side up and down) vision; I have around 6-8% left as of two years ago. If you look through a camera to take a picture, you know how you can only see what's right in front of you and not what's around you? That's how I see. I also have night blindness...yep blind as a bat at night...I often need help in places I'm not familiar with. I found out it was Usher's when I was 28 years old. I stopped driving about two years ago (I REALLY miss driving). My doctor told me no more driving because my eyes had gotten too bad. My younger sister has it too. Her eyes are worse than mine. My hearing is worse than hers. I read lips and with hearing aids I hear ok. All three of my kids (two boys 17 & 16 and one girl 12) are carriers and when they have children their spouses need to be tested as well. If their spouse is also a carrier the chance of them having a child with this condition is 50%. My older sister does not have it, but she and her kids are carriers of the gene. There is no cure. Scientists are working on some things but currently, no cure. The doctors don't know if or when I will become totally blind and totally deaf. For now I consider myself lucky because I can still see and hear enough to communicate with other people. I don't know brail or sign language. I am going to learn both though. Better to be prepared I guess. Sorry I'm so far off the braces subject, but most people have never heard of Usher's before. I don't usually talk about it but, I figured what the heck...people don't know much about it anyway and to look at me you would never know I'm losing my eyesight. People usually don't believe me when I tell them I'm legally blind. I don't have the sunglasses or the stick or the dog or the blank stare...stereotypical right? But, really, that's what people look for when we say blind. I function really well at home, but any place else I usually need help. I have run into people in the store (very embarrassing), I ran into a beam right in the middle of the floor; it hurt and again very embarrassing(the color of the beam and the wood floor were almost the same color)and I trip over my dog all the time. When I bend over I hit my head on the counter, table, washing machine, cabinet doors etc. I always have bruises on my arms and legs from running into things. One time at work, (I no longer work by the way) I walked right into a closed door that I thought was open...lol I laughed and cried at the same time. No one saw me do it thank goodness! But, you get the picture. Anyway, thanks for listening to me go on and on again. I hope I didn't bore anybody to death. 'Til next time...see ya later!

Jaw pain

I was supposed to have my appointment with my tmj doc today, but we had a bad snowstorm and I ended up cancelling. We got another foot of snow (ughh). They couldn't get me in again until June, but put me on the cancellation list. Not much to really say today except the weather seems to be impacting my jaw quite a bit pain wise. My pain has been severe the last two weeks. All I can think of is it must be all this humidity from all the snow we've gotten that's making my jaw hurt more. Nothing I do to try to alleviate the pain helps and I'm frustrated. The nurse told me to use moist heat, glucosamine with condroiton (?sp), soft chew or liquid diet, and decrease stress (yeah right). I take muscle relaxers and pain medication too. I just can't seem to get any relief from any of these things. The heat helps but not for very long; only half an hour tops. I usually only eat one meal a day and snack the rest of the day. My jaw gets really tired when I chew anyway so I just try not to eat much. Anyway, enough complaining from me for now. It's late so I'm going to sign off and go to bed.

A little about my history with braces

We have alot of snow. This fence is 4 feet high. We're supposed to get more snow this week. Driving down the road is like driving through tunnels. Anyway, I'm ready for spring to get here.

I wanted to tell you a little about my braces. I got the bottom set on in November 2006. We did it that way because I wear a splint for my tmj problem. At the time I was wearing a splint on my top teeth. I had the wire adjusted every 4-6 weeks and it hurt like heck. My bite is alot worse now than it was before braces. But, in the end it will all be worth it. In January 2007 I had my remaining two wisdom teeth pulled; also hurt like heck, but my teeth moved alot after that. After each adjustment I couldn't eat anything but soups and really soft foods for three or four days because my teeth were so sore. I have lost about 25 pounds (I needed to anyway) since this started. In August 2007 I had impressions made for my new splint to be worn on my bottom teeth, so I could have my top braces put on. In September 2007 I finally had my top braces (ceramic) put on and my new splint for my bottom teeth. I like the bottom splint alot better than the top as it is easier to talk with it in. I have adjustments to the braces every 4-6 weeks and they're not as painful as the bottom braces were, but I do still have some pretty significant pain. My top teeth don't have to be moved as much as the bottom teeth did. The ceramic braces do tend to cut my cheeks more for some reason though. I still have to eat soup and really soft foods for about 3-4 days after each adjustment and my jaw tends to get really sore for about 7 days or so. With each visit to the orthodontist my bite gets worse. My next visit to the ortho is February 19th and hopefully it won't hurt too bad this time. Here are some pictures of my bite and side profile.

My face looks flat from the side view. My jaws look really crooked especially the upper jaw. My teeth are pretty straight; I only have two more adjustments before surgery. I was not wearing my splint in these pictures because it makes my bite look a lot worse.

Sorry this post was so long...I'll try to keep it shorter next time.

No pictures yet

I was going to post pictures today but I can't find the (?)USB for my camera so I can download the pictures. I don't like my picture taken so I don't have any recent pictures I can just scan, so as soon I find what I need I'll post the pictures. So, anyway I have an appointment with my TMJ doctor on the 13th (not looking forward to it) to discuss when he thinks I should have the jaw surgery. He wants me to wait until July but I don't want to do it then; I've already been in braces for over a year. Besides that we do alot of things in the summer like camping and fishing that I don't want to miss out on. So, I'm going to try to convince him that May is better. I have two insurances; one has already approved the surgery but I will be losing that insurance in June and the other insurance hasn't approved it yet so May is going to have be it. I can't afford to pay for the surgery and I would be very upset to have gone through with the braces and pain for nothing. I'm also really really hoping that the surgery will help the tmj pain. Has anyone who's had the surgery had to deal with the tmj pain? If you did, did the surgery help? I just want this all to be over. I'm tired of being in pain all the time.

First post! February 8, 2008

I have been in braces now for one year and three months. I am tentatively scheduled for jaw surgery on May 14, 2008. Like many of you I have searched the net for info to no avail. So, I just decided to write about my experiences to help others. I will have upper and lower jaw surgery for a class 111 malocclusion with open bite, cross bite, asymmetry (right jaw longer than left) and vertical maxillary hyperplasia (long face). I also have a TMJ disorder for which I have to wear a splint 24/7 and I have a lot of pain. So, hopefully the surgery will help the tmj pain. I am starting to get nervous about the surgery so any comments and suggestions will be helpful.