Hello 2015! Hello straighter teeth!

It's been almost 4 weeks since my last orthodontist appointment and I feel pretty good dental-wise. I've been fighting a cold since before Christmas and it just hasn't gone away. I went back to the doctor and was told I have walking pneumonia! Geez, not something I wanted to deal with right now, especially since I'm trying to save my earned time at work for surgery. I feel ok but I'm just very tired.

In other news, I got a water pik from my in-laws! They had one that they didn't use anymore and it was recommended that I get one the last time I went to the dentist. It has really changed my evening dental routine for the better. What a difference! It has increased my evening flossing/brushing routine by a few extra minutes but it makes my mouth feel 20 times cleaner.


My teeth have been a little sensitive but I chalk that up to the braces doing their magic. It wasn't until earlier this week when I was brushing my teeth when I noticed how much my teeth had moved. I took some photos and it's really amazing how fast they moved. Maybe my teeth have a memory from the last time they were stuck in braces? Who knows! I still have some large spaces from the palate expander but those will hopefully close soon.

Wednesday, January 7th 2015

I still can't believe how much my teeth have moved. Everything is going very fast!

Last time I was at the orthodontist, I asked about the timeline since I was in that holding pattern. The orthodontist told me that it would be another year (in which I semi-freaked out btw). I was confused and disappointed since I was told a year ago that this journey would be 1 year. I was really expecting to have surgery anytime between Jan. 2015-April 2015.
Well, it's been a year, and now I'm being told it's going to be another year. It was hard not to be disappointed. I'm putting my life on hold and there are things that my husband and I want to do (namely start a family) that we can't do until I've had surgery. When I called her out on the time line, she was honest with me and said that she won't know when I can expect to have surgery until she sees how fast my teeth move. It really depends on them. She said that if they move fast, I might expect to have surgery in 6 months. If they move slow, however, she told me that I might not have surgery until the end of the 2015 or early 2016.
Now that I've seen what my teeth can do in just 4 weeks, it has really increased my spirits. My next appointment is January 28th and I'm hoping that my orthodontist will be excited at my progress. I'll be getting those dreaded spacers for the top back molars at that next appointment. Me and spacers don't really go well together so I'm not really looking forward to that appointment for that reason.

I'm going to try to get better at posting a progress picture with every new post from now on.

Picture Update

I promised pictures so here they are! Pardon the quality, they were taken with my cell phone.

Regular head shot. You can see my top jaw is off center compared to my bottom jaw.
This is quite common with people like me.

Side View. My teeth are together and you can really see how far off
my bite is from the side.

Me biting down fully. Look at how large that gap is! This picture really shows how messed up my
teeth really are, just blows my mind. 

Guess what....?!?!?!?!

The palate expander is GONE! Outta here! I saw my orthodontist yesterday and she was quite pleased with how well my bottom teeth looked and with how much space the expander gave her to work with. She also put on top braces (SO EXCITING!!!!) so I now have a mouth full of bling. I was so happy that I almost started happy crying in the chair. 

My jaw and teeth are pretty sore today. Along with saying goodbye to PEA 2.0 and getting the tops put in, I had to take a couple pictures where my lips were stretched back using these plastic grip things. I've used them before and they can be pretty uncomfortable. I've been on a diet of mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, oatmeal and ice cream for the past day and a half. I'll probably continue on the soft food diet for a few days until my teeth calm down. 

I haven't had time to take any photos (my bailey burrito had surgery today so I've been a nervous wreck!) but I will post them either tonight or tomorrow. My top teeth are pretty jacked now, haha! You can really tell how much smaller my lower jaw is compared to my upper jaw now. I will definitely post some pictures very soon! 

Happy December 1st!

Hey all! It's been a couple of weeks since my last flossing incident post and I thought it was time for another picture update.
Again, not much has changed but I figured it would be nice to have a couple "before" photos. In this photo, you can see how messed up my bite really is. And yes, I am biting down completely.

It's amazing to think that it's been 1 year since my first jaw surgery! What a difference a year makes! It's kinda sad but this time last year, I could barely smile at all, never mind one like this.

My next orthodontist appointment is Wednesday December 10th. That appointment will mark the start of my next braces chapter. My orthodontist will be back from maternity leave and we will start to plan out the next steps! That includes getting rid of PEA and finally getting top braces. You have no idea how excited I am to finally get rid of this stupid expander. I really miss sandwiches.

I plan on stuffing a sandwich into my face as soon as this contraption is removed. Maybe even two!

I can't wait!

Flossing just got more dangerous...

Well, I've reached a new low since starting on this jaw journey. I somehow got a paper cut by flossing. Don't really know how I did it but it happened. One second I was fine, then I felt something weird on my finger and low and behold, a paper cut from where I was holding the floss.

Because flossing doesn't already suck enough I now have to worry about getting paper cuts too. Great. Just dandy.

Seriously, how does this stuff happen to me?!

A very merry dental halloween

I had my long awaited orthodontist appointment yesterday. The tech who I worked with was a lot of fun. He kept trying to convince me to get Halloween colored bands put on my braces. And when I said no to orange and black, he spent the rest of the appointment convincing me to get brown because brown is the color of thanksgiving. Haha! I ended up getting red.

Since my orthodontist is out on maternity leave I had to see a different orthodontist (Who I can't remember the name of unfortunately). She was very nice though! She looked at my teeth and saw that one of them wasn't moving the way it should have. She had to tie wire around it to stabilize it a bit more and to direct it to move where it's supposed to.

It didn't hurt when it was happening but I always take some ibuprofen before all my appointments. I sometimes walk into an appointment not realizing that I have to have a lot of work done. Later that day, my left side (where they had worked) really started to hurt. It started to bother me in the afternoon and has persisted all day today. I haven't had much of any dental work done since the end of July so yesterday was a little bit of a wake-up call. I had almost forgotten about my braces and PEA (I said ALMOST, not completely haha!)

The nice part is that my next appointment is in another 6 weeks which is December 10th. There was something in my file about "bracket" work to be done at my next appointment which means that I might (MIGHT) be able to say goodbye to PEA. !!!!! Very exciting. I'm going to try to not get my hopes up but it's very difficult! The appointment is only 30 minutes long though so I don't know if that's a long enough appointment for bracket installation and PEA removal. I am so ready to get rid of this thing though! I just can't wait!

Nothing to report, small life update

Well, it's been a very long time since I've posted anything. Almost 2 months to be exact!

I really don't have much to report dental-wise. Still in that weird holding pattern. I do have a check up next week on Halloween. Maybe having my braces tightened will deter me from eating a boat load of candy. My teeth are still a little sensitive but not as bad as before. And I also have another dental cleaning in November. Here's to hoping that the 'almost drowned' tag won't be used again!

These last couple of weeks have been super hectic and relaxing at the same time! We just spent the last 10+ days on vacation! We try to relax but there's so much that we want to do that we end up doing everything and then we are exhausted by the end of the week. We went to PA to celebrate a wedding with some of our friends and their families. It's probably one of the last weddings we'll have to go to in awhile before we start getting invitations for (gulp) baby showers! After the wedding, we decided to drive the extra 2 hours down to D.C. and spend the week with one of my close college friends. She put us up in her house and we roamed around DC for 4 days. After that, we drove back up to New England and went to the Berkshires to the in-laws. Lots of fun. Along the way we made another short detour to Troy, NY and ate dinner at Dinosaur BBQ. OMG, it's my favorite bbq place and it's SO good. We went there to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. Nothing says romance like brisket and spicy barbecue sauce. 

After that, we came back to Boston and we were in the area for 4 days. Then we left again and flew to Tampa, Florida to spend time with my aunt and her family. My cousin got married and it allowed me to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in a long time including my two cousins. We flew back on Tuesday and now we are seriously back to reality. 

Surprisingly, I only gained 2 pounds while on vacation! I'll call that a success since I drank like a fish the whole time. :P

In other news, I have accepted a new position at the hospital. I now work full time in the main OR at my hospital. I haven't really said a whole lot about it because I've been so busy, but it's official! It'll be a great opportunity and I like the fast paced environment. I'm very excited to learn a lot more clinical-wise. My hours are now 10am-6:30pm which is really nice. This schedule allows me to actually spend time with my family and it even gives me the flexibility to go to all dental/medical appointments in the morning before my shift starts. This was more of a lateral move so unfortunately, no pay raise. But I should be getting one in January when my yearly review comes up. 

Ok, that was probably boring and pointless but whatever. :D Next week I will definitely post about my Halloween dental appointment!