Day 102

Ok, so I missed my appointment for the palate expander installation bc I was running late from work. I have to admit, I was not that disappointed. It's funny, this is the first time that I am not anxious to get an appointment as quickly as possible. I remade it for Wednesday, but Jeff and I are going away for a long weekend on Thursday and the last thing I need is to have a piece of metal equipment across the roof of my mouth and for my teeth to be too sore to eat. So I might put it off for another week. I've waited this long, what's another couple weeks??!!

I also wanted to share that last weekend I skied for the first time!!! We went to Mammoth (which was AMAZING) and I took two days of group lessons. I was tearing it up! My body is so out of shape, so it was a workout!!

Here are some pics that show my jaw and teeth better than my self portraits;)

Day 100!

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing great. The subtitle of this blogpost was going to be "I'm going to be in braces forever", but I didn't want to plagiarize Sarah's latest post:)

I went to my ortho last week and he was not happy with the width of my upper arch:( It's 30mm and he'd like it 35mm. My gosh darn 3rd molars are anchoring my teeth in too well and won't let them move at a proper pace. So, I'm going in this afternoon to have an expander installed. You know, that piece of equipment that 2nd graders wear before they have braces put on? He thinks I'll need to keep it in for one to two months. Ugggggg. Not very happy about it. At least its the kind that I don't need to wind with a key.

I'm happy to say that I don't think about my jaw all of the time. Though, I still examine my teeth and jaw every single time I step into my office elevator.  After all this time I still have numbness above my top lip and chin. It's not too bad, but it's definitely weird when I move my mouth. My top gums are almost completely numb.

I do have some pain when I yawn, but this has been easing over the last month.

I realized I can now move my tongue all around my mouth and can touch every tooth with the tip. I know this may seem weird, but I used to try to explore the inside of my mouth w/my tongue and it would cramp up if I tried to extend it too much.

I can ALMOST open my mouth three fingers wide. I can't really move it side to side.

Another issue is my skin... my forehead is so broken out, worse than I've ever experienced. It seems like this is a problem other people have after surgery. It's just weird that it's hitting me months after.


This pic is from about two weeks ago. The shadow makes it look like my face is out of whack, but it really is pretty symmetrical.