Sheer impatience with NHS

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#1 Post by **redfoxjo** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:15 am

Hi all,

This is a vent really. I've been in braces nearly 2 years waiting for double jaw surgery for overbite, lrecessive chin, long face and lip incompetence. I consider myself a fairly attractive looking girl but since this whole process began, I have obsessed more and more on my defects and how hideous I think I am.

My ortho has gotten my hopes up too many times on when he thinks my surgery will be. I know for a fact he's made some ocean-ups that has prolonged the brace treatment and therefore thrown any chances of getting surgery within the first 2 years realistic. It's all on the NHS so it's taking f^^king ages!!! Now it turns out my roots are too close together so they need to expand them before they can make the incisions needed to cut my top pallate in three for expansion and lowering (eeek!!)

Has anyone gone through this monstrous wait on the NHS? I had my joint clinic appointment two months ago, hoping I'd get my surgery date and they just told me about the roots being too close. I pretty much seized up with distress in front of my surgeon and couldn't ask any of the questions I wanted to.

I was SO distraught that day I felt like getting a pair of pliers and tearing off the braces. I was so angry with my ortho for constantly getting my hopes up. I saw him a couple of weeks ago and he said he's not going to tell me anymore when he thinks I'll be ready.

I'm so sick of waiting and then reading people's stories about relapses, not being happy with their faces post-op, nose changing for the worst (I HATE my nose so am terrified it's going to get bigger than it already is) and that my face shape won't change like I hope (it's long like Sarah Jessica Parker - though I think she's pretty - most people don't!)

Sorry to rant guys, I'm just so sick of feeling like a freak when everyone else around me gets to coast through life with their perfect jaws and nice teeth and have no trouble eating or getting called horseface when they were younger.

Grrrr. Anyone else going through/been through similar? xx

#2 Post by **crazybeautiful** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:29 am

I know what it's like to feel like you've been put through the wringer and you're waiting and waiting for nothing. We all need to vent sometimes (and trust me, half my posts on my blog and on here are moaning and hyperbolising the dreadful state I'm in! though FYI, needing this treatment is a dreadful state to be in

)

However, I don't think it's necessarily because of the NHS (I feel protective of the system ever since the whole universal health care debacle in America

), rather, and quite simply, because this is just a long, drawn out process that is unpredictable. You've been waiting 2 years because that's how long it has taken the braces to do their job. I've been waiting just as long (as have people elsewhere). The draw-back of your roots must have been a bad blow, but again it's just one of those things.

I think it's tough for orthos, because it's a case of give the patient an estimate, or keep them in the dark full stop. My ortho has told me a few times I'll be ready 'in 6 months', and since then it's been a full year! But I think if I came and she never told me about my progress (even if the estimate time was wrong) I would feel like I'm getting nowhere. I don't really think they realise the extent of what bad bites do to a person's mentality. Personally I hate my jaw and lisp; I feel at once masculine (because it's an underbite) and childish (because of the lisp), and I'm looking forward to having the surgery so I can eat and chew properly, and have a normal profile, etc. Treatment time goes longer for us than it does for them

I think we all have a hard time when we've been in the treatment process for quite a long time, but in the end all we can do is be patient still. We can't do into surgery unless our bites are 100% ready- otherwise what's the point of the surgery?
Our times come eventually

#3 Post by **Neil(NI)** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 8:28 am

I have had my braces on for nearly 3 years now and just had 2 operations in late November and early December to correct my jaw (2nd operation was because of a relapse).

When I originally set out to get braces, I was on the waiting list for about 2 years before getting them on. I was told that I would have the braces on for 2 years and then would have the surgery at the end. I had the 2 year date in my head as the time when this would all be done, but as I got closer to it I realised that I was gonna be stuck with braces for a bit longer than that. Based on current prediction, I should end up with these braces being on for a total of 3 and a 1/4 years. Not fun lol.

With regards to surgery, I was put on a waiting list in February of this year, so it took 10 months of waiting. I believe I was ready for the operation about 3 months prior to the actual date. It's likely that you'll have your braces on for some months in which they aren't actually doing anything for you but you're just waiting on the surgery. Based on my experience, you won't get a surgery date until a month before hand, if not less.

I think in the end though it will all be worth it, and I'll probably not mind the extra brace time and waiting time for surgery.

#4 Post by **Bowater** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:04 am

I first enquired about surgery for my overbite in 2006 and it was not until Easter of this year that I had the operation. However considering how long other people have to wear braces (4, 5, 7 years!) it was not that bad.

However my profile slowly worsen throughout the treatment, which made me very self aware of my appearance. When I had the operation it was a huge relief and the results were impressive and worth the wait. Once it has happened then you soon forget about the anguish of waiting for so long.

Don't worry about having braces now, try and concentrate on how you will look afterwards!

#5 Post by **Neil(NI)** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 11:28 am

I agree with Bowater, once you have braces on for a few weeks you forget all about them and once the operation is done and you've recovered, you'll be thinking of how well things have went rather than the long wait you had to endure.

#6 Post by **redfoxjo** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:42 am

Wow thanks for the replies everyone. That makes me feel less alone in my braced up misery. I hate hate hate hate them - I want them off so much.

But I want the surgery more!

Neil(NI) - I can't believe you had to wait 10 months for surgery! I am apparently going to get my surgery date end of March now - does that mean I could be waiting 10 months too? I think I'll have a mental breakdown if I do and reach for those pliers

I guess I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel yet because I worry myself with relapses and what if it goes wrong, etc. I am also feeling so resentful at the fact I've spent most of my mid 20s in braces - supposedly the best I'll ever look youth-wise and I've got a metal mouth.

*sigh*

#7 Post by **Bowater** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 11:23 am

Only for you your looks will improve beyond your mid 20's and not deteriorate. So you have more to look forward to than most.

#8 Post by **queenofoverbite** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 12:12 pm

Try to wrap yourself up in surgery prep and I bet the time will go by much quicker!

Try liquid recipes, order supplies, research healing times, etc.

They'll be off before you know it, I bet