Lauren's story

[arraye]

Hello! After years, and years, of hoping for this day would come... I finally got my braces on!

My full backstory I have written up on my blog ( https://laurensnhsjawsurgery.wordpress.com/timeline/ ) but I fancy keeping a record of my journey in a thread on here too.
The short version is:
- I had braces as a teen, was told on them coming off that I'd have a (mild) open bite that I shouldn't worry about, didn't wear my retainer, my open bite got far, far worse (due to jaw growth) and after years of thinking I'd need to save up for private treatment found out that my skeletal issues require medical attention and so my treatment would be covered by the NHS.

I made the initial private orthodontist appointment at the end of 2015. It took just over a year to go from making a private appointment, to the hospital referral, to getting my braces on. I am so, so pleased that I am going through this because it should solve a lot of issues that I was previously unaware of, e.g. I haven't had a good night's sleep in years due to sleep apnea, I'm a mouth breather, I can't chew properly, my overall appearance is a bit off... all of which are due to the position of my jaws.

It is scary, though. My biggest concern is that I'm either not going to be happy with, or I don't 'recognise' my new face after the surgery... Still that is maybe 2+ years off.

I have pictures from my first day in braces, I hope to update every adjustment or few weeks or so. I will update with higher quality pictures soon, they are on my camera but not currently on my person.

Behold:

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My total time of treatment is estimated to be three years, including surgery. So I think it will be ~2-2.5 years to align teeth, surgery, then ~6mo - 1 year of braces after.

[BlondeCam]

Oh my goodness. I'll have to google an open bite, an unsure what that is. I wish you the best of luck.
I'm getting ready for my second round of braces as well. Like you, had as a teen and didn't wear my retainer.

[atrixa]

Three years is a long time, but it will be so worth it in the end! My second brace is going on next month, so it will be great to see everyone's experiences.

[arraye]

Oh my goodness. I'll have to google an open bite, an unsure what that is. I wish you the best of luck.
I'm getting ready for my second round of braces as well. Like you, had as a teen and didn't wear my retainer.

I have an anterior open bite which means my teeth meet and touch at the back but they don't at the front. Sometimes this is caused by thumb sucking, tongue thrusting etc and these cases can sometimes be sorted with orthodontics alone. In my case my upper jaw is underdeveloped so orthodontics alone couldn't even camouflage the issue.
Yeah I kick myself everyday for not wearing the retainer! I did for a while but I kept breaking them or losing them...
Good luck with your braces! When do you start?

Three years is a long time, but it will be so worth it in the end! My second brace is going on next month, so it will be great to see everyone's experiences.

3 years is I know, I have just started a ~3-4 year long PhD though and I'm looking forward to actually being able to grin in my graduation photo this time! Good luck with yours make sure you keep us all updated

[BlondeCam]

Had my records appointment last Tuesday. Am anxiously awaiting the scheduler to call for "hopefully" my banding. After reading through this blog, I'm remembering some super fun things like spacers that I had forgotten about. I'm unsure if that's something I'll have to do.
Also I'm feeling a tinge of anxiety about staining of ligatures on the ceramics. My previous treatment was full stainless. This go round, I'm opting for the slightly more age appropriate ceramic uppers. My teeth are not the gleaming white variety anyway.
I recall the clear elastins turning unsightly yellow in my youth. Yuck! Keeping my fingers crossed that there have been improvements in the last 25 years.
Best of luck to you as well!

[arraye]

5 weeks in and I can see movement! Those upper incisors that were tucked behind are coming forward and I don't look quite so goofy anymore.
Also I can tell the size of the open bite is getting worse - I was told this would be the case, that things will get much worse before they can get better.

First adjustment is on Friday, the 6 week mark. If I remember right I will be getting a thicker wire then.

[BlondeCam]

They seem to have improved a lot already! Mine went on Thursday. Wish I could figure out the whole pic thing.

[arraye]

So at my last adjustment (7 weeks ago really?? How time flies!) I didn't get a wire change but they did take the wire out to rest briefly before retieing the rubber bands on. It hurt a LOT. And worst of all was on the way home one of the bands popped off! I live about an hour's drive from the hospital and was away most of the following week so it wasn't until the following Friday, St Patrick's day that I could go back to get it tied on. My orthodontist is Irish and so I didn't get a choice what colour band she replaced it with

Thought I'd update with a couple of HQ photos to show progress!

Day 1:


~Week 9 – I was too lazy to take HQ pictures in between week 1 and 9 because it involved charging the battery on my camera, which is a shame because those incisors came flying forward and seeing them move would have been interesting.


Today:


Find the green one!
It does also look like my love of coffee has had an effect and is staining the bands at the front - oh well, with the metal colour it is not noticeable without the flash on the camera and they should be getting changed on Friday.

[Steph30]

So at my last adjustment (7 weeks ago really?? How time flies!) I didn't get a wire change but they did take the wire out to rest briefly before retieing the rubber bands on. It hurt a LOT. And worst of all was on the way home one of the bands popped off! I live about an hour's drive from the hospital and was away most of the following week so it wasn't until the following Friday, St Patrick's day that I could go back to get it tied on. My orthodontist is Irish and so I didn't get a choice what colour band she replaced it with

Thought I'd update with a couple of HQ photos to show progress!

Day 1:


~Week 9 – I was too lazy to take HQ pictures in between week 1 and 9 because it involved charging the battery on my camera, which is a shame because those incisors came flying forward and seeing them move would have been interesting.


Today:


Find the green one!
It does also look like my love of coffee has had an effect and is staining the bands at the front - oh well, with the metal colour it is not noticeable without the flash on the camera and they should be getting changed on Friday.

Wow!!! Look at how straight your upper teeth are already!!!! Looking good

[arraye]

Wow!!! Look at how straight your upper teeth are already!!!! Looking good

I know they came into place so quickly! After my Friday adjustment I am now on a thicker wire on top. I'll also be getting spacers in again at my next appointment with the intention of placing brackets on my upper wisdom teeth? I'd assumed they would just ignore them and let them do their own thing! They haven't been mentioned at all until now.

Unfortunately my bottom teeth have barely moved and they are worried as well that there will be some recession on my bottom incisors. They're going to leave it a few appointments but they may have to take one of them out to give my teeth room to move into place, but without having to move too much so as to cause a lot of recession (so will take out a particularly wonky tooth that seems to be in the way of the others). I really don't want to have a tooth out (I am proud of having all of my teeth ) but we shall see. This would also mean that I have 3 bottom incisors instead of 4....

[arraye]

I had another appointment last week. They decided that I will just lose my wisdom teeth during surgery and so we won't bother aligning them and dealing with spacers, which I'm a little disappointed about because I didn't want to lose any teeth, but I think it's also somewhat common for jaw surgery patients to lose their molars. Two haven't even fully erupted so it was probably always going to happen.

She put an even thicker wire on my top teeth (wire #3) which has made me feel like it's week 1 of braces again! Ouch ouch ouch. They are aligning very nicely though and they will probably be fully aligned well before my bottom teeth. She mentioned that we will be "widening" my arches but no hardware has been mentioned so I'm hoping it's just wires pulling my back teeth out and giving my a wider smile. Although she did say to prepare for a gap to form between my two front teeth before my next appointment.

She also removed the bracket from my left bottom incisor (in the pics above it is on the right) and placed a spring between the canine and the incisor either side of it. It's not too painful but today it seems to be flaring up - a sign that things are happening at least. They don't want to give up on these incisors just yet so fingers crossed things start happening.

My open bite is so bad I've started lisping - it's far worse than it was at the start. I am positive she mentioned that I'll have an underbite by the time I'm ready for surgery - I feel like I made that up and there is no way that'll happen!!

I have pics but haven't got around to uploading yet. I don't think a huuge amount of difference can be seen since the last pics.