Second go-round for me!

[braiiins]

Hi everyone! I'm Stefanie, 26, and this is my second time in braces. Had them at age 12, but wimped out after about 6 months and had them removed.

My situation - my lower jaw is set back causing a pretty severe overbite. I was told when I was younger that if I didn't wear the giant apparatus they gave me to hold my jaw forward, that if I wanted to fix the problem later, I would have to have my jaw broken and reset.

I finally got the nerve up to speak to an ortho about straightening my teeth in October. I was given two options - braces and extractions with headgear (nighttime requirement only) for 3-4 years, or braces and extractions with jaw surgery and a treatment time of 20-28 months. I opted for no surgery, because my insurance is covering $0, and the surgery would have cost an additional $12,000-$20,000 on top of the braces fee.

So I had the braces put on on January 26th. Damons on the front 6, top and bottom, metal on the rest, no brackets on the 4 bicuspids or upper 2nd molars. Had 6 teeth (bicuspids plus lower wisdom teeth) extracted on February 19th (2 upper 2nd molars will be removed probably in about a year). Had power chains put on the uppers today, but lowers will have to wait - I guess with my bite, my right canine would sit on top of the lower power chains when I close my mouth and mess with it?

So far, the toughest part of this process was BY FAR the extractions. Thanks to TMJ, recovery from the wisdom teeth extractions (which were soft impacted) was difficult, and being tiny already, I lost too much weight, which made me very nauseous every time I tried to eat, and am now trying to put it back on.

Other than that, so far so good! I noticed movement in my lower teeth within 2 days (no joke!). Can't wait for things to get moving on the top and for the gaps to start closing, so I can see some real changes. I've got a long way to go, but I'm excited about it!