I posted on here a while ago at the beginning of my consultations with my Orthodentist.
I am 29 years old and have an anterior open bite:
It wasn't really an issue for me until I realised how bad it actually was and I was also worried that it had/ would get worse.
I was having a regular check up with my dentist when I mentioned to him about this issue I was having when trying to eat sometimes, he looked at my jaw and agreed that the problem needed to be looked at so a referral letter was drawn up and sent to my local Hospital (Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire)
Within a few weeks an appointment was sent through for me to see an Orthodentist to discuss what options were available to me.
I was told that I needed to have braces fitted and also an operation to correct my jawline, it was suggested that I go away and think about it as it was a very long process which would take at least 2 years (at very best).
I decided that I had to go ahead as I was nearly 28 years old at the time.
I returned to a follow up appointment and said that I wanted to go ahead with the procedure. I was told that I needed to have all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed in order to make room for the "adjustments" that were necessary. I had my wisdom teeth removed and was surprised at how little pain/ discomfort I had after the op. I was only swollen for 2 days and was eating properly again in 3 days.
I then had another appointment with the Orthodentist where various x-rays and photo's were taken of my jaw and teeth.
After about 6 months I had an appointment to have my brackets fitted:
The appointment took about 45 minutes. It's quite strange having someone glueing pieces of metal to your teeth and the glue has a very sour taste but there was no pain involved at all. I was expecting to wake up the following day with huge ulscers all over my mouth but this was not the case at all for the week when I had just the brackets on my teeth. I also had to have some "spacers" inserted between my back teeth as they needed to have metal rings put around them rather than just brackets stuck to them and the teeth were too close together to be able to fit the rings between them. I'm not sure if this is normal for all brace wearers or not but it was explained to me like this "the teeth at the back are a lot stronger than all the other teeth and they have 3 roots, the metal rings are needed to ensure the wire stays connected to these teeth while they are being moved about and they also use the teeth to re-align the jaw during surgery so obviously it's very important that the wire holds it's position on the teeth.
Yesterday (30th May 2008) I had my wires fitted along with 4 rings (2 on each jaw), 2 more rings will be fitted to my very back teeth at a later stage:
You can just about see the rings on the back teeth.
This morning (31st May 2008) I have woken up to a sore cheek where the rings are rubbing on the inside of my mouth. My teeth feel ok at the moment and I can definately feel that things are moving already.
I have to go back to have them adjusted on 11th July.
Thanks for reading and I welcome any comments/ suggestions.
eybic
Sorry about the picture size. I just resized them to "website" size in photobucket but they are still massive on here???????
Glad to hear your extractions went well. I didn't have spacers as I don't have molar bands(metal rings) but I hear they're the worse part of braces so sounds like you're doing well. If things are rubbing, don't forget wax. It was a life saver for me when I was first braced. Good luck on your journey!! 
