I had an appointment with my ortho today; and I’ve come away feeling very good, and also very proud of my surgeon (does he need a teenage girl to be proud of him for just doing his job? Perhaps not!).
I was taken straight away to have an X-Ray, and then went to see my ortho. When the assistant came out to call me in she said ‘you look great’! A trainee was there too, who was comparing my X-Rays as I went in. I had a look and the difference was just crazy. I have the screws along my mandible (which I can feel), and then I have the others around the nose and upper jaw. My teeth like totally fit together man, and it’s awesome!
My ortho said for only 3 weeks everything looks amazing, and usually at this stage she needs to do a lot more work to get the bite stable, but in my case I don’t really need much doing because the surgeon did such a good job (see, that’s why I’m proud, or should I say
privileged?). As such, she thinks I may only need the braces on for 3 more months, rather than 6. However I’m not at the point where I’m sick of my braces and want them off; I’m at the point where I’m thrilled to be on the right side of the surgery, and I actually have a decent bite and profile now. Still, it’s good that she has less to do.
She is still on with the elastics, though (since I came out of the surgery sans splint or elastics, and she thought I should have had them on- she keeps mentioning it all the time!); she said the surgeon must have been so pleased with himself that he didn’t want anything extra doing. I see her point of view in that it’s her job to get the teeth side of things perfect (or as near to perfect as anything can be) so she wanted the elastics to stabalise the bite. However, since the surgeon actually did do such a good job, then what’s the problem? He said he didn’t want to use the splint if possible because it’s horrible to live with (if I’d had to live on liquids for more than the few days that I did, I definitely would have felt horrible, and I think recovered less well), and since the bite fit together as it did, elastics weren’t necessary. But anyway, I think my ortho likes her elastics, and I’m happy with them so long as they remain in simple shapes that I can deal with!
She asked if I was ok to have a wire change and I said yeah, go for it. I’m not in pain and I’m numb anyway, so ... She changed the top wire, put back on 2 hooks for the elastics (which actually did hurt! Pressure on the teeth can get you even if your gums are numb), and added 2 powerchains to try and close my 2 gaps (my elastics go over the chains on the upper jaw). The elastics are in a trapezium shape rather than box now, but are in the same place as before so I can handle that. Also she let me have the lighter ones for more range of movement. Although to be honest, I was fine with the thicker ones because they weren’t particularly strong anyway; well certainly I could eat with them in.
She was pleased with my ROM anyway (I can open 2 fingers vertically, perhaps slightly more), as well as my cleaning (I’ve been trying the best I can, but I need to pick up a bit more. It’s hard though because I keep catching the stitches by accident because the hang down a little. Yesterday I made one bleed because I caught it with my toothbrush)
So all in all she was really pleased, the trainee said I looked great (my ortho told him to pass along the message to my surgeon that I looked great when he sees him later), the assistant said I looked great, the other ortho who works there popped in for something else, but had a look anyway, and also said it looked great. So today I feel very pleased. Not with myself, but for the people who do their job very well. Because that means I have results to be thankful for, and ultimately I can feel good about myself for the first time in ages.
PS- is it silly to want to get my surgeon a thank you card, and my ortho a big bunch of flowers? :O
