3 months is a lot shorter a period of time with the expander, however generally ortho's who insist on longer are just more conservative and want to make sure that there won't be any considerable relapse. I think if you have a lot of expansion, then the normal period of 6 months with the expander seems quite reasonable to me. I didn't like wearing it, but at the same time you want to make sure you don't relapse a significant amount (although in my case I still need more expansion anyway!Braceventura wrote:As I said in a prior post, I had my SARPE on July 22nd, 2009. The RPE comes out this Tuesday, October 27th - a little more than 3 months after the surgery.
The OD will place a TPA in and then put on upper braces at that point.
From reading all the other posts, it looks like this is actually a fairly minimal time to have had this 'torture' device bonded in my mouth. However, I am anxious to be able to speak and eat normally again and it couldn't come out soon enough!
I feel comfortable eating almost anything but really dense foods at this point. There is some residual sensitivity in my teeth but it's not bad at all. I still have numbness in my upper gums and a little numbness in my lip but it seems to be getting better and better every week. This had been a very big concern of mine for quite some time since I felt very numb until recently.
From my discussions with others, I think you need to give the healing process at least 6 months before things will be "normal". However, if I don't actually recover all the sensitivity I had before it's not bad enough that I would have opted out of the surgery.
The recovery has, however, been a lot more involved than either my OD or OS led me to believe. At this point, however, it's mostly just annoying, not painful.
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
In my case, once the TPA was in, it was like I wasn't wearing anything at all. Of course you can feel the wire with your tongue, but in everyday activites you shouldn't be bothered by it
Glad your recovery has gone well. I agree with you, the process brings up annoyances, rather than much pain, but overall it's worth it, and in the great scheme of things not too big a deal.
Are you having further surgery? For a lot of us, SARME is merely phase 1!
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)