Overdue Mouth Post

I haven't written about my mouth business lately. No time like the present...

For starters, I went back to my dental surgeon in June. He said that everything was healing up nicely and my upper jaw is the perfect width now. The new bone in my palate is not 100% healed yet which is normal.

My triple jaw surgery is tentatively scheduled for June 11, 2015. This is much earlier than I was expecting, as I was told 2016 in my initial consultation. I am getting upper and lower jaw surgery, plus sliding genioplasty. Sliding genioplasty is the same as chin augmentation surgery, but instead of an implant, they cut your chin off (yikes), slide it forward, and screw it in place with plates. The jaw surgeries work in a similar way.

Now onto the braces!

I am happy to report that flossing is no longer the 10-15 minute task it was in the beginning. I've gotten much quicker at it. 

Eating isn't too bad, although eating socially is stressful. I am constantly wondering what is in my teeth that people aren't telling me. Salad is the worst. I also still need to cut everything with a fork and knife, which can be inconvenient, especially with plastic cutlery.

My bite is currently whacked, although it wasn't something I paid attention to pre-SARPE so I don't know how much worse it is. If I open and my close my mouth, I can see my lower jaw veering off to my right. I am sure elastics will help immensely with this.

Numerous people have told me that braces make me look much younger than my actual age (28). The consensus seems to be that I look anywhere from 18-24. I have noticed a difference in how strangers treat me, and it is occasionally frustrating.

I know many adults are too self-conscious to get braces, but I haven't had a single stranger say anything. Before I had braces, I very rarely noticed adults with them. One of my curling friends had them for a year before I noticed. I'm not joking, I seriously never noticed.

Anyway, I know everyone loves progress photos...

May 21 (day one) vs July 27

May 22 (day two) vs July 27.

pre-SARPE, December 2013; Post-SARPE, May 2014; 7 weeks in braces, July 2014
I had my first adjustment on July 21 and all 3 employees I came into contact with literally said, "Wow, your teeth have moved a lot!" The assistant told me my teeth are moving fast for an adult!

P.S. I know my teeth look dingy in the recent photos...I had copious amounts of coffee today and haven't yet brushed my teeth!

Gel Pen Reflections

When we were teens exchanging greeting cards, my BFF Tori and I had a sacred tradition. We would gather all of our gel pens and write dozens of little notes on the card as tiny as possible. We would fill the entire card so there was literally no space left to write anything else. It was a great tradition that we have since gotten a little lazy with.



Last week I found a pack of hard copy Some E-cards and the one on the front perfectly described my lifelong friendship with Tori. So I gathered up my now pathetic stash of coloured pens (blue, black, and red) and wrote as tiny as possible (which, by the way, is difficult after years of relying on keyboards).

Maybe it's the beer talking, Tori, but you've got a butt that won't quit (no homo).
In the card, I posed the question to Tori, "what would your younger self think of you now?" After receiving the card, Tori told me she hadn't ever really thought about it, but she supposed she'd be confused by her current haircut and job, but that she'd probably admire her apartment and cat (which I helped her obtain by pretending to be her mom...it's a good story). Tori posed the same question back to me and I decided I'd make a blog entry out it, mostly because I haven't written an introspective entry lately.

Maybe because I'm overly reflective, I often think about what my younger self would think of me now.

As a kid, I think I definitely had some weird ideas about myself. I was fascinated by the idea of having a "real name," IE having a different name on your birth certificate than what you go by. I hadn't seen my birth certificate as a kid, so I didn't know it said plain old "Jaime" on it. I remember always bragging to my friends that my real name was something other than Jaime. For example, I learned that my mom had watched The Bionic Woman in the 70s and decided she liked the name Jaime for a girl. I took this to mean I was named after The Bionic Woman, and this was very exciting to me. I liked the idea of being named after someone; it seemed special and important. She told me the actress who played Jaime was named Lindsay. Thus, I surmised that my REAL NAME must be Lindsay, and I can remember telling a skeptical friend about it.

As I got a bit older and was being teased relentlessly at school, I took much of it to heart. I thought I was smart and funny, but I also thought I was ugly, undesirable to boys, and destined to be a geek forever.

Seriously, did I mention I was a geek?
I actually remember thinking my life goal should be to find a man who would marry me, because I felt like I was going to really have to work to find anyone who would actually like me. Now, looking back, I feel like there is a giant chasm between how I envisioned my future self and who I am now.

As far as boys are concerned, I haven't really spent much time single or at the least, not casually dating. Also, as you may be aware, I was married briefly in my early 20s. So I guess I had to come up with a new life goal.

Younger Jaime would probably be impressed that 2014 Jaime is in decent shape, plays sports, and exercises regularly. I've never been naturally talented in any sport, but I do enjoy the sports I play now (curling, soccer, hockey) and I love running. I always wanted to be a runner so I think Young Jaime would be excited about that.

Younger Jaime would definitely not be impressed at my lack of a diploma or a degree (I do have a certificate); however, Younger Jaime would think it's insane that I chose moving to Nunavut over going to college. Young Jaime would have been ecstatic that not only did I get to see Hudson Bay, I actually lived on it for 2 years.

Younger Jaime would probably also refuse to believe that I now work in a male dominated industry and fit in well with my coworkers. Younger Jaime would probably wonder how the hell I got into law enforcement.

I think my younger self would also be impressed that I've managed to style my wavy, unwieldy hair into something that looks semi-decent, and that Future Jaime dresses so much better.

Truthfully, Younger Jaime would probably not be impressed that I've been living with my dad for 4 years, and she would think it's crazy that I'm engaged to an American and plan to move stateside some day. I think Young Jaime would think Anthony is out of her league, although truthfully, 2014 Jaime still thinks that sometimes (2009 Jaime thought she had just another unrequited crush).

All in all, I do think Younger Jaime would be impressed and surprised and sometimes I fantasize about going back in time and telling my younger self all of this. Of course, that would create some trippy mind fuck and would probably mess everything up. But still.

Jaime and Tori: 2065?
Hopefully this long entry of self-reflection was at least somewhat interesting. If you've just woken up after falling asleep reading it, I'll take a coffee and some French toast, please!

Also, I think this entry perfectly fits into the title of my blog and the whole theme of your life turning into something unexpected, which I think is very true of my life. Kinda cool, huh! Look at me, coming up with these relevant entries, 4 years in...

Thoughts After 48 Hours with Braces

Ouch

Will eating always just feel like mashing food into the brackets?

Oh my god, oatmeal is the worst.

Where did this GIANT chunk of banana come from? I've brushed my teeth twice AND flossed?!!?!

What else is hiding in there that I can't feel, see, or brush out?!

Has anything moved yet?

How can such a tiny bracket and thin wire feel so sharp?

How come nobody is noticing the braces?!

Please don't look at my braces.

When am I going to stop dreaming about braces?

Oh my god, flossing. Can I hire somebody to do it for me?

Seriously, it took me 10 minutes to floss and I had to wash my hands practically after every tooth because I was drooling everywhere.

Do I really have to floss everyday? I might as well quit my job and be a stay-at-home flosser.

When can I eat steak again? :(

I can't believe I signed up for possibly more than 2 years of this. How do people not go insane?

B-Day

Today was the day I've been trying to make happen since I was 12: I FINALLY got braces.

It only took 9 consultations, 1 surgery, and 2 orthodontic devices before I was finally ready.

I can't say that I was excited, though. Rather, I was sort of dreading it because I knew they were going to be uncomfortable in the beginning and I am a little tired of the soft food diet right now. The TPA device (see my last entry) caused more pain than anticipated and I was only just getting back to normal. I figured that'd happen. I was frustrated as this past weekend was very busy and I was out of town (and therefore eating in restaurants) for all of it. And then Tuesday was my real b-day and I went out for lunch and a post soccer game snack. I feel like my fun was compromised by the dumb TPA.

But anyway, enough whining.

Getting braces put on is a pretty straightforward experience. They slide this funky device over your mouth so your lips and tongue can't touch your teeth. There is even a little cage for your tongue. That contraption was one of the worst parts as stuff like that tends to send me into a panic, making it hard to breathe through my nose. I knew they couldn't put the braces on without it, though, so I closed my eyes and tried to relax.

My teeth were polished and then had two different solutions brushed on. The actual application of the brace brackets is super cool. In the lab, they make this plastic mouth tray that looks like your teeth (using your impressions). Then they place the brackets in the tray thing, and they slide the whole tray on at once. Then they just zap your teeth with the UV light wand for a few minutes and it's finished.

Putting on the wire and ligatures was more painful, mostly on the top because my front teeth are STILL tender from SARPE. Actually, I mentioned that to the assistant and she didn't know that I'd had surgery or what I meant by SARPE. Then she asked me if I'd noticed a difference from SARPE (after I had to explain what it is). I almost laughed I was so incredulous. I was like "Well YEAH." I kinda noticed when I was off work for 2 weeks, high on percs for a week, and then had to crank a key into a giant metal bar in my mouth, creating a gigantic gap between my front friggin teeth. I noticed JUST A TAD.

Maybe I'm being a jerk but come on...how do you not know about a giant part of my treatment plan?! You work there!

Anyway. So getting the elastics installed really hurt on the top but was fine on the bottom. They were clipping the wire off the back and it felt like she clipped my tooth instead. "Oops, we popped a bracket off! Sorry!" Um, ouch!! So they had to reinstall a bracket. That tooth throbbed for about an hour afterwards.

After they finally let me go, I went back to work where I was in progressively more pain until I came home and took one of my left over Percocets and had a nap. After lunch, the pain definitely peaked. It hurt so badly that I was actually nauseous. I didn't get much done today at work, unless you consider staring off into space and feeling sick as doing something.

But guess what! Today is the worst my teeth will ever look!! It's all uphill from here. Apparently by my first adjustment in 8 weeks, I will already look so much better.

Before SARPE, December 2013.

After SARPE, before braces. This picture makes it really obvious how messed up the midline of my face is.

Braces Day 1: ceramic on the front 6, metal for all the rest. Went with pink for my first elastics!

IT'S OUT!

Today was the day I'd been looking forward to since December 17: the RPE was removed! To say I was excited would be the understatement of the year.

Obviously the day dragged until 1:45pm when I finally got to leave work and go to my appointment. My excitement was palpable, the assistants seemed amused.

The appliance is removed much more quickly than it goes on. They saw a cut in each of the 4 bands and then gently pull the whole thing out. It was a little uncomfortable getting it removed but I was too excited to care. It was a few minutes before I could finally have my mouth to myself and when I touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth, I immediately exclaimed "Oh my god!" My mouth felt GIGANTIC!

Unfortunately they did have to put the TPA (transpalatal arch) in immediately as per normal procedure. This is a much smaller wire that goes across the roof of my mouth to keep my palate from reverting.

Getting fitted for the bands was a bit painful but the whole thing didn't take very long. Them trying to pry off excess cement was probably the worst part.

The crappy thing with the TPA is that it has brackets on either side. The inside brackets hold the wire in place and the outside brackets are for when I get braces next week. I came home and put some Gishy Goo on the outer brackets as I could feel my cheek was already getting chewed up.

Gotta admit, I'm not thrilled that the TPA will be in there until the end of my treatment but it is much more tolerable and not really in the way. If something has to be in there for the next 2 years, better the TPA than the RPE.

I do need to have an honestly moment here. Every time I'm at a new stage in the process, I can't help feeling somewhat frustrated with all of it. I always look forward so much to the next step and then it happens and it's like, "Oh yeah, this still sucks!" It's obviously worth the trouble but it does get momentarily annoying having to go through everything. It's a lot of adjusting to less than ideal circumstances that you can't escape and that you paid a lot of money to be dealing with. Most of my frustration had settled down because it's been nearly 5 months since anything new happened, but the TPA has reawakened it. I'm sure next week when I get braces, I will be happy and excited to get going, but also frustrated because let's face it, this whole process sucks!

In the meantime, I'm back to soft foods because ouch.

Anyway, here's what a TPA looks like!



Next stop, braces on May 21st!

4 Months Post SARPE Surgery

Wow, those 4 months went by fast!

I just wanted to give an update because I had an orthodontist appointment the other day. Besides usually being the only adult patient in there, the assistants are always interested in how things are going with me. I haven't taken any photos lately but my smile already looks better than it did pre-surgery. I already feel more confident when I smile, it's hard to believe that some day in the not-so-distant future, I'll have even straighter teeth. Amazing! So glad I did this.

My appointment with my orthodontist was to talk about getting the expander removed. WOOOOOOOOO.

I was so excited that it seemed like my orthodontist was talking as slowly as possible. Honestly, he was, because he was reading or writing notes or something while talking.

Dr. M: Okay so it looks like we can...remove the appliance...hmm...let's remove it, let's see...

Me: ?!!?!!?!?!??!?!

Dr: M: In uh...4...

Me: [[FOUR WHAT?!]]

Dr M: ...to 6 weeks.

I was little disappointed I had/have to wait another month, but I knew it was going to be 4-6 months and I've just been telling myself to expect it out as late as June, so I can live with May.

May 13th is the big day. I do have to get the smaller retaining wire thing across the roof of my mouth, but apparently it's nowhere near as annoying as the RPE. I will at least have the roof of my mouth back.

One week later I'll get my braces. That puts us at May 20 but I said no way because that's my birthday! It's also the second soccer game of the season and I don't want to be in pain for that. I want to enjoy my birthday as the last day for awhile when I can eat what I want, so I'm getting my braces first thing on May 21st.

Anyway, if it's of any interest, my front teeth are still tender. I still can't bite into anything except for very soft foods. My upper gums are still mostly numb though I do think a tiny bit of feeling has come back since I last wrote about it in March.

Although this has nothing to do with SARPE, it looks like I may need a root canal next week. I had a cavity filled in one of my molars last week and my tooth has been in agony ever since. I can't function without about 400mg of ibuprofen in me, and it wears off so quickly. I really hope it settles down this weekend but I have a feeling it's not going to. This shit is painful. As painful, if not more painful than the SARPE surgery. Whenever I tell people about SARPE, their first response is to cringe and ask how painful it was. I'd rather get SARPE again than deal with this tooth ache, I'll tell you that much. At least  with surgery, I was justified in staying home from work and whining!

Alright, so expect another mouth update on May 13th or 14th! 25 more days with the expander until I'm freeeeeeeee!

14 Weeks Post SARPE Surgery

I thought I'd give an update since I see a lot of my blog hits come from people looking for information about SARPE!

My case is different from ALL the blogs I've read, because my orthodontist doesn't want to put braces on until the RPE comes out. In literally every other blog, they have braces by now.

The gap: I mentioned this in a post earlier this month, but the gap closed on March 4, which was 75 days after surgery, and 55 days from the last turn of the key. Not gonna lie, I was pretty happy about it.

I could see and feel that it was closing a bit everyday. My front teeth are on a slight angle, which my orthodontist told me is normal. He said any time there is a space between teeth, they will tip inward to fill the space. So there is a little gap at the top of my front teeth, which has not closed at all since my teeth finally met. It is barely noticeable, though.

The facial numbness/swelling: that all disappeared quite awhile ago, with the feeling in and around my right nostril being the last to return to normal.

Gum numbness: my upper gums are still mostly numb, I'd say 95% numb. The last time I saw my orthodontist, he kind of evaded my question when I asked if that's normal. So I called the oral surgeon's office and their answer was, "Well, you knew ahead of time that might happen." They did say to give it 6 months, but if at 3+ I'm still 95% numb, I honestly don't hold out hope. This is disappointing and upsetting and makes me really worried about the second surgery, since I'm getting triple jaw surgery (upper, lower, and genioplasty).

The numbness doesn't bother me that much except that I'm constantly aware of my upper gums because there is no mutual sensation between my gum feeling my lip and lip feeling my gum. It's just my lip feeling my gums, so it feels like there's something wedged in there.

Biting/chewing: My upper teeth are still not stable enough to bite into anything, but it has gotten a lot better since the gap closed. I can bite into something very soft like a fresh donut but anything more than that, I have to stick it under my molars to bite off a chunk. I'm quite lovely and graceful to watch eat! The appliance still tends to push food out of my mouth, so sometimes food falls out of my mouth when I'm eating.

Also, I still can't chew hard or excessively chewy thinks like almonds, pumpkin seeds, steak (wah!), raw carrots, etc. I am addicted to Quest bars which are hard and chewy. I have to cut them up into bite-size pieces and my jaw still aches after having one. I made the mistake of eating two in a day last week and my jaw let me know what it thought of that.

The appliance: I barely think about it anymore. I've gotten so used to it, sometimes I forget it's there. I am looking forward to getting it out, though. I have another orthodontist appointment on April 14, which my ortho says is when we will discuss removing it. I hope to god that means shortly thereafter and not like, June.

Other: In January, if I bit down normally, I could stick my tongue out the space between my upper and lower teeth. I could also stick my baby finger all the way in my mouth. Gradually, the relationship between my upper and lower teeth has changed. Now if I bite down normally, I can barely fit the tip of my pinky finger in the space! The other day at the gym, my upper and lower front teeth knocked together. It took me a second to realize what was going on because it felt so strange. I have NEVER been able to get those teeth to touch, and now I can stick my lower jaw out so my lower teeth are in FRONT of my upper teeth. Holy smokes, you guys. I'm amazed that SARPE has made that much of a difference to the shape of my upper jaw. These are things I'd probably never know if I got braces put on right after surgery like everybody else.

Sadly, I fried my MacBook Air in an unfortunate inept-yoga-meets-large-glass-of-water-meets-MacBook incident, so I have to make do with what I have on this laptop, which is my old 2007 MacBook that contains only old photos.

December 2009 vs March 2014, smile already looking better...hair is not