Foxface's story - why so serious? (pic update after SARPE)

[Foxface]

Hi, fellow brace fans.

I'm 26 years old, and I just decided to finally do something about my frankenbite. Over the years, many dentists have told me that I needed braces, but I was scared to get them. My parents (now 66 and 76) both have naturally straight teeth, and both hail from a time where anyone with a full set of teeth had an edge over most of the population. They are amazed that I'm prepared to put up with all the hassle now - I guess the problems were not as obvious when I was younger, and my teeth have been good to me otherwise. I think I have no more than two or three fillings, although I hate flossing. (and so would you if there was no space whatsoever between your upper teeth...).

My older sister, however, understands completely. Her problems were less severe, but she was in braces between the ages of 26 and 28 as well. (Oddly enough, so was the phd student supervising my MA thesis at uni...)


To give you an idea where I'm at now, the pre-brace mug shot:



Lovely, isn't it?
In the upper two pictures, I'm sticking out my chin so my upper and lower front teeth are at the same height. Third one is a picture of my usual smile. If my jaws are in their usual position, I have an anterior open bite you can nearly put a finger in (although I'd rather you didn't). I can't bite down at all. The one moment in this brace journey I'm really looking forward to is the moment of FIRST CONTACT when my lower and upper front teeth meet at last.

The upper jaw is clearly a lot too narrow, but on the bright side, I'm the clearest case for SARPE surgery you could wish for, I won't need any extractions, and I hope my lower teeth won't give me too much trouble.

The ortho said what the other orthos I consulted several years ago told me would need to happen: SARPE surgery, 12-18 months in braces, and then probably BSSO and 3-6 additional months in braces. My health insurance took one good look at my x-rays and sent me a very friendly letter that basically said 'be strong, we'll pay'. You know that things are bad with your teeth if public health insurance won't even put up a fight before they fork over the money.

I decided to go ahead with it now because I want to change jobs pretty soon, and don't want to wait another 6 months before I'm comfortable enough there to spring the SARPE gap and braces on my new colleagues.

Also, the boyfriend just decided to accept a job with the international red cross, which means he will move to some less than touristy arabic speaking destination for a year or two next month. I should probably be worried, but I'm mostly excited for him, and, to be frank, kind of relieved that I get to do the most icky parts of the treatment without him. I'd rather ask the flatmates or parents for help if I have to look and talk like the deranged cousin of the easter bunny until next spring. (the oral surgeon said something about 10 mm expansion. I might get THE GAP THAT ATE TOKYO.)

We decided that we'll step on the scales before he leaves and before I get the braces on, and meet again in a year to see what braces/jaw surgery and the international red cross can do for your waistline... :]

Here's the timeline as it stands:

Oct:
7th: going to the dentist for final preparations and a professional cleaning. Also, the boyfriend leaves for Geneva.
13th: spacers and fluoridi..something. Prep.
20th: braces ( I think? If only I could decide which kind I should get!)
27th: expander cemented in
29th/30th: admission to the hospital, SARPE. Boyfriend on plane to his new country of residence.

Wish me luck.

[guji girl]

Hey. Well done for plucking up the courage to get this done. I know it is hard from my own experience. I have recently been braced (only been a few days) and I would definately recommend it!

Good luck!!

[Foxface]

argh! day 1 in braces here.

Before the braces went in I spent a lot of time warning practically everyone I know about the braces-to-come. That's what coming out of the closet must feel like, a little. Not as traumatic and permanent, but you still get to have a lot of awkward but necessary conversations. ("So, my jaw is all crooked and freaky, that's why I'll get braces, disappear for two weeks and come back with a smile like spongebob...") Maybe we wired people could get at least a little street cred and have them stitch some braces onto the rainbow flag?

Putting on the braces was a piece of cake compared to the first days in spacers (just when they stopped killing me, they went out again) and getting the RPE appliance fitted. Nothing like getting ten different size metal bands jammed over teeth that are still sore from the spacers. With poky spiky metal things. Who of you was asleep at the switch there? I wasn't PREPARED that might hurt!

Enchanted by Michelle's SARPE pictures with clear braces, I told the ortho I would go with sapphire on top, damon on the lowers. Actually, I only have sapphire ones on the first few upper teeth - the ortho asked whether I would go with damons on the rest from where the frontal metal bands from my RPE appliance will show. That was a good decision - actually, I ought to either have asked for full damon or (better!) ceramic ones on top, since my teeth are not naturally pearly white, even though they just came back from a full cleaning. They looked much whiter set against the blue spacers...
I think I will get used to how the sapphires look (and they will look better on me when my front teeth are even and rounder, i.e. in about 4 months...), but to anyone (hello esoteric...) who was planning on getting them - the ceramic ones (such as in-ovation c) might blend in better if your teeth look like mine. If you judge from the pics, though, bear in mind that the wire and the ligatures that are on my teeth right now are not quite the right colour to make the sapphire brackets 'disappear'. I didn't pitch a fit about this but will ask the assistants next time around. I figure it won't make much of a difference either way since the ginormous
gap that's about to appear between my front teeth will steal the show for the first few months.
Anyway, I'm now convinced that in-ovations on the front teeth plus damons on the back teeth are the way to go for SARPE people. If the sapphire ones give me any additional trouble, I might use that as an excuse to have them changed (can't be that big of a deal for just 8 teeth? or 4?), but I won't bother if they're okay otherwise.

The braces don't hurt so far, but they shouldn't, since my wires are light and cut into pieces in the case of the uppers, so the braces are mostly just sitting there waiting for the star of the show (also known as The Chainsaw) to make his grand entrance.I can already tell that I'm going to enjoy myself more when they're changing the lower wire - everything is already quite nicely aligned, and they just have to click the brackets open and jam them shut again instead of jamming ligatures between tooth and bracket. I realize I sound like a Damon commercial, but rest assured, they're practical, but fugly.

I was a bit taken aback when I looked at myself in the mirror afterwards, but nothing major - the braces do feel bulky, and I have an embarrassing
lisp if I don't enunciate very clearly. My lithp will be EPIC after SARPE and RPE appliance... When I'm out on the street I don't feel self-conscious about the braces, I've seen so many people with them in the last few days (one girl notably had the combination I was about to get!).
Meeting the colleagues made me a bit nervous, but I think I'm mostly over it. Still went with a very conservative meal option (soup and yoghurt). Will try something more complicated tonight.

[Foxface]

The week after getting braces just flew past because I've been so busy at work and the boyfriend was so close to leaving for his humanitarian mission in Sudan. There was a minor scare when the ortho found out that my teeth weren't in spacers for a second week although that was necessary to fit the RPE appliance in. I ended up getting extra thick spacers between my teeth for a quarter of an hour, a first slow and extra painful fitting session with the appliance, and a second one the next day.

Before the surgery, I was perfectly calm, because my mind was still on all the other things I had to think about from work. My boyfriend brought me to the hospital and stayed while I got my hospital bed and visit to the anesthesiologist (he took one look at my list of ailments and allergies and said the equivalent of 'run along and play, you're perfectly healthy') .

I also got to meet the Chainsaw, Dr. Z., before bedtime. He's rather patient and friendly for a chainsaw-wielding maniac, but I wasn't fooled.

He took pictures of my pre-surgery bite (if only I could get my hands on them, I never took any others...), did a blood test, made some additional molds, and, unfortunately, explained to me in greater detail which bones he was about to detach. Pretty much all of them between upper lip and chin except for my nose, it turns out. I wasn't sure I needed to know that. Secondly, he was slightly worried about the size of my RPE and managed to wreck one of his own keys trying to demonstrate how the screw was supposed to be turned. 'Are you sure there's no one who could turn the appliance for you?'

Uh, no, but thanks for asking.

On the plus side, I asked him what he thinks he needs to saw in half next time we meet, and he said I might get off just getting my upper jaw moved during the second surgery. That's got to be a lot better than having both of them moved, riiight?

[Foxface]

Surgery day was extremely weird. Before anything was done, I was called in for a short pre-surgery appointment, and the whole room was WHITE with doctors. The head doctor, all his assistants, and even a visiting doctor from Brazil. I was so taken aback I nearly stumbled back out again.

I found out again that there really is such a thing as a chain of command in a hospital - this time, the big cheese was there, my surgeon's boss, and everybody else kept their heads down while he was poking fun at their earlier diagnoses. Like a bad Scrubs episode. Of course, after carting the stupid RPE expander around all previous day and living in fear of losing it, I had left it in my room this time, and the senior physician made me get it. Fun was had by all but me as he too tried to get the screw to move, and it wouldn't budge.
They joked around about buttering up the screw, and the head doctor wondered aloud which presidential candidate it was who didn't get elected because he didn't know the price of a pound of butter and guessed it was Al Gore. I'm pretty sure it was John Kerry, but you don't argue with the chainsaw guy two hours before surgery.

After taking a parting shot at my ortho for not smoothing the edges down a bit better, I was dismissed and could put on my sexy surgery gear at my leisure, since my surgery was scheduled for 12 and I wasn't allowed to eat or do anything else in the meantime.

I was mainly afraid of general anesthesia, I thought I'd panic, but the people were extremely nice. The anesthesiologist fussed about putting my hair under the hairnet thingie, and one of the surgeons squeezed my feet in passing and promised to turn up the heating since I was so cold. You just go in there wearing basically nothing but these bizarre garter-length anti-thrombosis stockings and a sheet. The surgeon asked me to name a place I'd want to dream about, and while I was still talking 'Sudaaaa...' , they already put the mask on my face and I was out like a light. I hope I just hallucinated his answer ('oh, that's a nice place' he said completely unfazed.)

Waking up was pretty horrible, I was snivelling like a baby and didn't stop whingeing until they put the second round of painkillers in my IV and promised to give me some tea for my sore throat (they put a tube in my nose and throat while I was out, so afterwards you feel that it's been there). My gums hurt a lot for like an hour or a bit less, but I wasn't sick, and afterwards, I never was in much pain, either. So, the moral of the story is, don't be afraid of general anesthesia. Do start making a fuss quickly and effectively after surgery, and you will be served.

I slept for most of the rest of that day.

[Foxface]

-double post removed -

[Foxface]

The next days passed with eating, sleeping and cooling my face under a watercooled mask that made me look like Jason . Very fitting for Halloween. The hospital food was disgusting, but I got to take my antibiotics via pill and not via IV a day early for being a good patient... and because the IV drip started to leak. I got a brief checkup by a doctor every day, and the first morning after surgery, I woke up just in time to find the whole ward round rush past again. Reason tells me they shouldn't, but they do look freakishly like the people on Grey's anatomy.

Today was finally the big day - I got discharged from the hospital and I got to try out my brand new expander! It's still difficult, but I finally got there with the help of a mirror and the chainsaw, who was amazingly patient again. Getting them to give me enough information how to deal with this thing in my mouth afterwards was more difficult. I got quite angry at one of the assistants for not taking the time to answer my questions properly. I mean, this whole DIY bone expansion part of the surgery IS a bit freaky for somebody who wouldn't trust herself to cut her own bangs on a dare. It doesn't seem to be painful, but I'd rather get it right.
I went to the ortho instead to double check on my instructions and went shopping for a good-sized torch and mirror to help me in my expansion progress. I'm still a bit worried since I never know how far to turn the bloody thing, but if I don't see any progress around Thursday (there is a small gap already, but is it moving?), I can always ask the ortho again. Must check other threads on this website to find out how other people fared.

[bb]

this whole DIY bone expansion part of the surgery IS a bit freaky for somebody who wouldn't trust herself to cut her own bangs on a dare.

Funny!! You sound kind of Bridget Jones-y!
Glad to see you're sense of humour is intact.
Good luck with your expander.

[Foxface]

this whole DIY bone expansion part of the surgery IS a bit freaky for somebody who wouldn't trust herself to cut her own bangs on a dare.

Funny!! You sound kind of Bridget Jones-y!
Glad to see you're sense of humour is intact.
Good luck with your expander.

oh, thank you! That really cheered me up. (Need to read up on your story so I know what the ortho has in mind for your teeth.)


It was necessary. Since, if you must know: the expander sucks. Also and especially the flimsy blue key with the pointy end that they give you to turn it. I spent a good portion of last evening, this morning and this evening trying to turn the screw, and I have no freaking idea whether I really managed to turn the screw no, a half, one or two times in total. I did, however, nearly break the key in two and managed to ram the pointy bit down into my throat numerous times. OWW! I think the gap between my front teeth is slightly bigger (around 2.5 and 3 mm) than before, and I can feel the expander putting pressure on my jaw bones, but I have no clue whether I'm doing it right. Will save my big freakout for tomorrow, when I'll pay a surprise visit to the orthodontist. They said I could come by anytime when I think I am screwing up (mwaha!).

At this point, I must mention that my doctor situation could really be worse. I'm kind of annoyed that both my regular orthodontist and most of the assistants at the hospital are always rushing you in and out of the room so you don't really feel like there's time for questions, but I do understand that they're doing their best in a rather stressful job, and I have the feeling that they know what they're doing. My surgeon is brilliant, really patient and kind, and he really tried to help me when I got to see him.
The assistants at my orthodontists are legion (it is a big surgery), and I don't have my favourites yet, but they've all been good about explaining what they were doing while I was being treated. Also, he's got this second motherly doctor working for him, who can be a bit insincere in her way, but who won an award for fitting the stupid expander into my mouth when the assistants had forgotten to put me in spacers. She made me bite down bit by bit on every single metal band so it wouldn't hurt as much, and for that alone, I salute her.
Also, she took some time to answer my expander issues when the doctors in the hospital had ushered me out with my two bags, a lot of questions and this bizarre key thing in hand.

In other news, I only noticed today how tired I still am after the surgery. Just sitting and going out shopping for groceries once a day makes me want to take a nap. I think I've overdone it a little on my first day. I'm still drooling like a faucet, but I think my speech will get better, I know it improved a lot a week after I got the braces.

Unfortunately, I just remembered that my ID card needs to be renewed ASAP - it's been invalid for 3 months already, and I didn't get around to do anything about it. The good news: the law requires me to NOT open my mouth for the picture.

The bad news: I still have a hard time closing it right now. I can close my lips, but I look like a pouting chipmunk if I do. The sides of my face are still a bit swollen, and the ever-expanding overbite doesn't help, but seriously, fellow SARPE people, please tell me that this gets better. Walking around open mouthed and drooling for the next 5 months is NOT an option.

[FuzzyPants]

Very entertaining! You should be a writer.

I hope you get used to your expander soon. Good luck with your treatment.

[bb]

Ha! Yes, not a good time to get an ID photo taken, I'm sure!!

[Foxface]

I have a confession to make.

For the last three days, I just hung around the house doing nothing but eating tons of soft food (like a blue whale), reading and talking to people on the interweb.
I even skived off my panic-induced extra visit to the orthodontist. As I said, I was terribly sleepy and lazy, and I couldn't get over the dialogue that would have ensued with the reception lady.

Reception lady: So, what's the matter?
Goofy (last seen with a 1mm gap): M notch shuure wesher she exshpander ish working.

I wish I was kidding. It's only a 4-5mm gap, but it feels like you could put up a canvas screen and have an outdoor screening of Star Wars in between there.

I hope my ortho will really insert a fake tooth for the months after I'm done expanding and waiting for the bones to fuse as he promised. It should be relatively easy, seeing as I'm already wearing braces on both upper and lower jaw.

I can recommend that, by the way. My upper mouth is still a freak show, but although the braces put no pressure whatsoever on my teeth and the wire is cut in the middle, it feels like everything is somehow held in its place and not sticking out as much as it otherwise would. It's also unnerving enough to feel something clicking around in your upper left gum and not knowing whether it's the expander or (AHHHH!) your bones that are loose. Having braces gives me at least the illusion of stability.

Other than that, I've mostly gone off the painkillers - although my jaw and face sometimes still hurts if yawn or (worse) laugh. I had to hold my lips down for the first week when somebody cracked a joke. It feels a bit easier to close my mouth, probably because some more of the swelling is gone and I stretched out the stitches in my gums and lips by laughing.

I've probably also done more chewing than the surgeon recommended (on soft foods like fried potatoes and scrambled egg and the like), but I hope I didn't do any damage. I feel I've all but exhausted the options of a no-chewing diet. Soggy toast ftw!

Cranking the expander feels a bit easier. I still hope I'm doing it right. The issue for me was that I thought I had to insert the key horizontally (at the front, since that's how the people at the hospital described it) and do a full 180 ° turn of the screw, and that didn't work at all. (And led to me ramming the key down my throat and screaming bloody murder)
I have to insert the key from below and turn the screw back towards my throat by 90°s. I seem to have the same type of expander as this guy, and he lives half a world away, so it must be pretty common.

The big issue now for me is to make myself practice speaking with the exshpander until I return to work on Monday. Since I'm still on sick leave at home and had plenty of people to keep me company online, I tend to forget thrice a day I ever had surgery. And then you stumble across your flatmates in the corridor and remember yoush shtill shound like a gargoyle.

[Foxface]

die, double post, die!

[Foxface]

You guys, girlfriend has cojones.
I went back to work this morning and put on feel-good music in my ipod to put myself in the mood for the impact my new goofy chic would make among my colleagues. Then, I went around all morning pointing out and explaining the gap to everyone I met so they wouldn't have to stare in wonderment and not ask. They mostly made fun of me for a minute and took it in stride. (I was too late in the case of one of my not-so-favourite coworkers who needed all of three seconds to spot it and exclaim 'You have a huge gap in your teeth! Are you missing a tooth? Oh GOD!' That lady's a natural, though. Last time we had a company barbecue, she admonished a Turkish coworker for eating during Ramadan and asked one of my colleagues why she was cold, seeing that she's 'not exactly slim, is she'. )
Speaking is a bit better, mostly because I bit the bullet (as if...) and asked my sister and Mom to phone me last night so I could practise with them for a bit. I shtill shound funny, but the gargoyle drool has left the building.
I hope the worst gap anxiety is over, and I'm looking forward to my appointment with the ortho late this afternoon. My upper jaw is still hurting and shifting all over the place when I swallow, which is not always painful, but unnerving. Last night my face hurt so much from
me speaking and trying to keep my mouth shut together (still not easy to pretty much impossible to do for long) I could hardly sleep until I took some more painkillers and put ice on my face. I hope the ortho tells me I can stop expanding next week, I can't wait for the bones to fuse back together - feeling them move has to be the ickiest part of my journey so far, even if the gap of legend stays with me for a while. Carnival season starts on 11/11,let's see if I stay in costume as Spongebob all the way through to February.

Helped along by some extra prodding by ChrisK and all you nice people (I feel famous!), I started a blog about my ortho adventures so I could post not only pictures of my teeth, but full face shots of my recovery. It's still a work in progress because the metal mouth message board was down last night and I couldn't transfer my earlier posts from this site to the blog. I'll try to make updates on both fronts at least for a while.

As a teaser, I present: The teef in braces after surgery and 1-2 turns, and now after 14-16 turns of the expander:



They're a bit grainy,but the webcam is all I have to document my progress. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I think my palette looks a little more spacious and rounded out already.

[Foxface]

Tada, it's gone!

I think I'm on my way to instant ortho blogger fame with this post. (I realize it's rather a sad dorky type of fame, like owning the most Magic The Gathering cards, but still). I get to amaze my coworkers with the Amazing Morphing Teeth again tomorrow.

When I saw the ortho today, she measured my gap and commented that it looked as if I had to keep expanding for another two weeks. So no appointment with the Chainsaw next Tuesday.
Shoot me now! If I still have to expand when December rolls around, I'll impale myself with the damn expander key.

And then she told me that the assistant would now put a bit of tooth-coloured plastic between my front teeth to make the gap less noticeable. I had no idea what the plan was, but seconds later, I had a lip holder in my mouth and could see three ladies in white move in on my grill like the three witches in Macbeth.

Purple stuff, some scraping.
W1: ahhh, so that's how it's done.
White stuff and more scraping.
Witches snigger.
W2: They're pretty broad already!
W3: Nahh, put on some more.
More molding and scraping.
W1: Now that's like Madonna.
More laughing.
W2: if you don't look at it too closely.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and this is what I saw:



Crazy, right? My ortho is a loon. Right now, this is pretty good, since people on the street don't get the impression that a tooth is missing.
But I hope the gap doesn't move at the same rate as before, or my newly broadened front teeth will make me look like Barry the Bucktoothed Beaver next week. Notice that there's a wire across my front teeth - no idea whether that'll hold anything in place. I hope it does, since I can use all the extra stability I can get.
My jaw is still moving all over the place when I swallow, and it feels like my tongue is still too big for my mouth, although I have an overbite.

I'm going to be extra specially good tonight and treat my teeth to some extra fluoride. Let's see if the plastic survives a toothbrush attack.