My overbite story

[mollycat]

I have finally decided to go for it. I have an appointment on April 2 to get braces on! The plan is to spend 12 - 18 months getting everything aligned, and then upper jaw surgery to close my bite, and then another few months for final tweaking.

Right now, I have an approximately 5 mm open bite, 3+ mm over bite, and crowding. When I was a teenager, I had braces to straighten my teeth and fix an over bite. Unfortunately, although I wore my retainers as recommended, they didn't suggest wearing it forever back then (early 1990s) and my teeth started moving after I stopped wearing it. That wouldn't have been such a big deal, but then I wore an NTI device for over 8 years. This is a piece of plastic worn on the front teeth to prevent back teeth from touching at night, theoretically reducing clenching. It seemed to help at first, and when my bite started opening, we believed that was my jaw relaxing into a better position. I now know that my molars supererupted, and some of my front teeth were probably pushed in a bit. When I first stopped wearing my NTI, my open bite was almost 10 mm.

Since September, I've talked to 2 dentists, 3 orthodontists, and 3 oral surgeons. They all came to the same conclusion: braces alone might make it look better, but that approach is unlikely to completely close the bite, and therefore would not be as stable as surgery. Based on this, I've decided that it's better to go ahead and get it right in a way that is most likely to allow me to be done with it and move on, instead of setting myself up for continual issues, or at least questions, for years to come.

I'm looking forward to getting this process started, but also to eating whatever I want this coming month. I've been eating a lot of nuts recently, so I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage for 2 years without any. Although, if that's my biggest problem with this venture, I'll consider myself quite lucky.

Looking forward to using this forum for support.
best to you all,
Molly

[Anna5]

Congratulations with your decision, Mollycat. I think it is a very brave and wise decision! Good luck with your treatment!

[DaisySmith]

Hi Molly,

I've found this site extremely informative and interesting and I'm sure you'll get the support you need during your journey. Good luck with it all. Enjoy those nuts! (Although I can eat pretty much anything now although initially it took a couple of weeks of mushy stuff so you might find nuts back on the menu at some point?)

Let us know how things progress.

[mollycat]

Thanks for the replies. I posted some pictures on another thread to show my starting bite:
http://www.archwired.com/phpbb2/viewtop ... 43#p443779

[mollycat]

Moving along... My braces date is a week from tomorrow! I'm not sure if I'll pick ceramic or metal (front top teeth are the only ones that would get ceramic), but I'm leaning towards it. I'm going to make the final decision when I get to see the brackets in person. I talk in front of people often, and am still meeting lots of new people at my job, so I think I'll be happier with less obvious braces. But, I've heard the ceramic brackets are larger, so that might sway me the other way once I see them.

Other big news is that my insurance company approved surgery! I'll have to go through re-approval, since it is more than a year away, but this is a good sign that they'll pay for it. (My baseline state isn't changing, so I don't think they should change their decision.) My plan is fairly restrictive, so I was concerned that I might need to change. Now, however, the surgery part probably won't cost me much out of pocket. (The trade-off for being restrictive is low or no co-pays.)

Looking forward to getting this process going,
Molly

Braces date: April 2, 2014
Upper jaw orthognathic surgery: 12 to 18 months later

[Sailrgrl]

I've had braces for 10 months and coworkers still occasionally ask "Do you have braces?" and "When did you get braces?" It's surprising because I feel like they are gigantic and can't imagine how anyone wouldn't notice them. I like my clear uppers - from several feet away, you can't see them.

[mollycat]

Finally getting nervous… I'm headed off in 20 minutes for my appointment to get the braces on, planning to spend most of the morning there. I haven't made a final call on ceramic vs. metal in the front, but leaning towards ceramic. I want to see the brackets again and get an idea of how much bigger they are. And then I'll have to live with that decision for the next 12 - 18 months.

Now for my crunchy, chewy breakfast,
Molly

[Matilda]

Good luck today!

[parsleysage]

Hi Molly! I hope it went okay today! We are awaiting news of your braces appt. and pictures of your new gear if you want to share them!

[mollycat]

Thanks! Getting the braces on took some time, but wasn't too bad. I don't have any bands -- just brackets. I went with ceramic front uppers, metal everywhere else. Because of my open bite, I could have done front bottom ceramic, but that didn't seem worth it. The ceramic brackets are a little bigger, but they don't stick out too much farther from the tooth and I think the edges are a little more rounded, so they are less irritating to my cheeks.

My teeth still aren't happy with chewing (biting into a hard boiled egg is not comfortable, but possible). My gums are also quite sensitive. I followed a recommendation I saw here and bought a waterpik as soon as I realized that brushing was painful. It has been really helpful so far! I wish I had planned ahead and ordered one online to save a few dollars, but by the time I realized I wanted one, I wanted it right away. I can get the loose food out with that, and then I don't feel as bad that I can't brush for the 2 minutes we're supposed to. I've been using warm water in the waterpik, to make it even more soothing on my gums.

Obviously, I'm still eating soft foods on day 3 post-bracing. It is annoying, but not too bad. I thought soft foods were something I wouldn't be dealing with until after surgery and didn't realize how much I'd have to deal with this now. I treated myself to some pudding, but my other favorites are hummus and butternut squash soup (with silken tofu blended in for creaminess and protein).

I'll attach some new pics.
Thanks for the support.
Molly

[parsleysage]

Great pics mollycat!!!!!! How are the braces treating you? Any pain or complaints?

We will probably be having upper jaw surgery around the same time. I am scheduled to be braced (I think!) next week, and dr. said 12-14 months after bracing is the normal timeframe for surgery. My teeth currently meet in an edge-to-edge bite that will naturally turn into an underbite once the braces get them straightened. Then we might make my underbite worse depending on what the surgeon thinks. Then a quick'n'easy maxillary advancement surgery hehe.

Definitely looking forward to hearing more about your progress as the weeks pass! Good luck with everything.

[mollycat]

Thanks! The first week was worse than I remembered from my last braces experience. The brackets rubbed my cheeks, especially in a few spots. But, as my dentist recommended, I toughed it out best I could. (Used wax only when I knew I'd be talking a lot, which was only a couple of times.) Now, I'm past that phase. The teeth that don't touch are still a bit sensitive, but even that's getting better. I'm still getting used to how much food gets stuck in the brackets, but swishing water around after eating seems to help a lot. I also really like my water pik. I'm also slowly getting used to having this stuff in my mouth all the time. It still feels bit strange, especially when talking and eating, but I'm already noticing that less and less.

I also expect my bite to get worse before surgery (although with only my molars touching now, I'm not sure how much worse it could be!) It'll be interesting to have straight teeth, but an awful bite. And then the magic of surgery…

Best of luck! Let me know how it goes,
Molly

[mollycat]

Got some good news yesterday: the orthodontist thinks I'm making good progress and may be ready for surgery sooner than we thought! They originally told me 12 - 18 months, so I figured it would be late spring or summer 2015 (braced April 2014), but he thinks it might be much sooner.

At my next visit, they will be doing models and then have me come back 2 weeks later to make whatever adjustments they think are needed after studying the models. They did warn me early on that they are more on the side of getting teeth close-to-perfect before surgery, rather than do surgery and then have a lot more orthodontic work to do, so there may be a few rounds of this.

I know a lot can change, and I'm not making any plans based on this, but just wanted to share my excitement about things going better than anticipated!

Molly

[Rapidjohann]

Good luck!

[mollycat]

Like many things I intended, I have not been posting here as often as I thought I might. But, the primary reason is a good thing: this process has gone much more smoothly than I thought it would.

Shortly after we started talking about when it would be time to go to the oral surgeon, I brought up the question of whether surgery was really needed. At that point, the gap between my front teeth was down to just a few mm (from 10). My orthodontist thought it was reasonable to try rubber bands for a few months to see how that went. Now, 6 months later, I just made an appointment to get my brackets off! No surgery!!! Because my teeth were so close before starting with the elastics, I'm feeling hopeful that even if my bite opens up a bit again, it won't be a major problem. (The severe open bite was due to wearing a bite guard (NTI), which is another reason to think that it is less likely to come back on its own. Mine was not an underlying anatomical problem.)

Thanks again to everyone on this board who helped support my decision to go for braces, with the plan of getting surgery. Choosing this path makes me feel good about the end result, and so thankful that I avoided the most difficult part. If I had decided for braces only, I wonder if I would be second-guessing any minor imperfections.

best,
Molly