I took an 18 month progress photo and put it up next to my starting look. I am pretty happy. (click on image to see larger version)
I asked my ortho how much longer and after a lot of gazing at my chart, my mouth, etc, he said that though he couldn't give me an exact date, probably another six months. He said though he is just putting the finishing touches on things, it takes a while for the jaw muscles to get used to everything and "settle in" which I took to mean, not only does he have his own tweaking to do, but if things shift or move a bit, he has to compensate for that as well so that I have as good a permanent result as possible. I told him, no worries...six months was still well within my patience level and about what I was anticipating.
As far as my recovery, my range of motion has been back to normal for at least two months now. I can eat anything (except right now cuz I am in pain!). There is still some tell-tale weird sensations in the left side of my chin, but no numbness. This will either fade slowly away, or I am stuck with it. If it hasn't dissipated in a year, I will assume that it will stay. But I don't think that's going to happen. As I have mentioned in other posts, I had heart surgery over twenty years ago, and the post-op numbness that I had from that is gone, and that took literally years to get back to normal, though easily 90-95% of my feeling was back quickly. So, this little patch I am not worried about.
As my ortho says, it takes time for things to settle in and I notice slight changes every once in a while in my bite, and then it justs goes back to where it was. Right now the power chains are causing some changes in my bite, and that just means more for my ortho to do, I suppose!
