Hello everyone! Welcome to Holly's Jaw Surgery 2017...
My Journey so far...
This blog is set up in hope that it will help and inspire
those whom are thinking of jaw surgery or those who are undergoing this process
to ask questions relating to the jaw surgery process. I hope to be helpful with
the information I give.
let me introduce myself, I am Holly. I am
currently 20 years of age and have a class three maloculsision under bite.
Looking back to old photos there is a slight under bite present but this wasn't
really an issue for me until I began noticing it more when I was in my teenage
years at about 13 when I first had braces. Originally I only had braces on my
top set of teeth, which I thought was odd, however it now makes sense to me as
having them again at 19 on both sets has worsened my bite. It would have
therefore made it much worse back then. My bite wasn't too bad after having my
first braces off at 15, however since 2011 when I had them removed my bite has
changed dramatically. By this I mean the gap between my top jaw and lower jaw
has expanded. For those who may not know an under bite is an protruding lower
jaw that exceeds the top jaw and causes depending on your case a small or large
gap between the two jaws. This makes eating difficult as it can be very hard to
tear certain foods with your front teeth (as they do not meet) and to bite into
foods such as apples and other hard foods as the bite isn't sufficient enough
to cleanly munch away at the food. Other issues could be that your jaw clicks,
locks and causes pain when you eat and yawn. Certainty in my case I experience all
these issues.
The process of jaw surgery is very long. At 15 when I had my
braces off my orthodontist talked to me about my under bite and informed me of
the option of surgery. I was very keen but at the same time dismissive as this
seemed very intrusive at the time. Quite a scary thought indeed! She however informed
me that I wouldn't have been able to do the surgery done until I was 18. Reason
being was that at 15 your bones are obviously still growing. If I would have
has surgery this young then I could have potentially damaged my bones and not
also this but even after the surgery and perfect aligned jaw, my bones could still
grow resulting in the same situation as I was already in. I was referred
and somehow I was slipped though the net as they call it as I was taken of the
waiting list for some reason to have braces again. Come 2014 (age
17) I went back to my GP to ask if I could be referred to the
oral and maxillofacial team
again to have orthodontic treatment and surgery to correct my under bite I
don't think the doctor actually believed me at how much a burden this was
causing me with simple things. He made me bite down and smile with my teeth and
also made me describe how an under bite effects my life. I am certain he didn't
think my under bite was causing me pain and the extent of eating was effecting
my daily life. After not being very hopeful in thinking I was going to qualify
for surgery he wrote to my dentist (I guess to get another opinion). My dentist
on the other hand was a lot more empathetic in understanding my situation and
could actually see where I was coming form in terms of my struggles.
Moving forward to February 2016 after waiting to have braces
I finally had them fitted on both the top and lower set of teeth. 6 months into
my treatment my orthodontist said that it was going really well and that he
wanted to start to "get the ball rolling" as he said. February 2017
we both was talking about surgery as it was drawing closer. My wisdom teeth had
to be taken out 6 months prior to my double jaw surgery to allow time to heal
fully before the real trauma. March 2017 I had all four wisdom teeth extracted
under general anaesthetic. This wasn't too bad, the nurses was all really
lovely and I was really well looked after. The downside was the pain and
swelling as well as throwing up every time I took co-codomol. However after I
stopped taking this the sickness went. I therefore took ibuprofen and these
worked for me. I was told after this by my orthodontist that my surgery should
roughly be October, as the wisdom teeth had to be taken out six months prior to
the operation.
Last week I had an appointment with medical photography so that the surgeons could compare and assess along with my x-rays to how much they have to move my jaws forwards and backwards. This wasn't the most pleasant of things though I must say. It felt wired having photos taken of your crooked bite. The photographer took a photo of m side profile, front profile, and different angles of my bite. On the plus side these photos will be great to see how much my face does actually change. I cannot wait to compare these photos to the end result. I am now awaiting to attend joint clinic with the whole team (it’s a big one) and finally set a date for surgery. I cannot wait!
Here are some photos below of my teeth/jaw when I had by braces fitted back in February 2016;
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| The gap between my teeth at the start of treatment. |
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| I hate my smile. You can see how crooked it is. |
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| Side profile. |
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| My teeth after getting braces. |
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