Hi all!

Oh my days the pain has GONE! :D Seems pretty trivial looking back at it, but it seems that anything concerning physical pain seems that way, in the same kinda sense with my day surgery back in Febuary. It took a little over a week before I could eat without wanting to scream at my food. Also my jaw has unlocked, something else which was very annoying that I forgot to mention in my last post (sorry!)

It's now been a couple of weeks since I got the new addition that is my lower fixed brace fitted, and although my teeth haven't appeared to change that much, I am definitely noticing the drawbacks of the "worsening" profile that goes with this treatment. I know it has to get worse to get better, before surgery happens. Whenever I smile with my mouth closed I reckon it looks like I'm doing some serious lemon sucking or something. However my top teeth are most certainly getting their arses kicked into action, the gaps from the extraction of the 7th and 8th teeth in the tooth stealing journey are closing up nicely, meaning that there's room for everyone else to shuffle along (:

Also I have no idea what I'd do without those odd interdental toothbrushes. Actual life saver (':

Successful chicken capture (meet Wilma ^-^) and lemon sucking galore!

Now back for Christmas from uni. I don't keep chickens in Canterbury haha, although that would be really quite awesome ^-^ Gah they're so cute! :3

Well what to say? Things have finally started to happen (:
So have an uber fun checklist of what's happened so far.

1. Six molars (including wisdoms) removed under GA
2. Molar bands fixed on lower arch
3. Two more big teeth taken out in the dentists to make more room (eight teeth so far!)
4. Upper molar bands fitted, 2 brackets and a wierd wire covered in plastic to move teeth (I can't have blocks on the front otherwise I'll break them with my bite) D:
5. Lower brace completley fitted, upper wierder brace tightened.

These things seems to have happened in a pretty random order, I never know what to expect when I visit the orthodontist :P I thought I was gonna get my bite disengaged, but that hasn't happened. I am quite relieved by this fact :D

All I can say now is that I have never been so angry at cereal in my life. Yes my bran flakes were mocking me this morning. Time wise it took me half an hour to eat them, and a whole 5 mintues to eat a malted milk.

Paracetamol is also a god send. I honestly wanted to rip my face off yesterday, I think I underestimated the pain of first getting used to fixed braces XD

Now a picture to demonstrate the wierdness that is my top brace (completley fixed) and my more conventional, newer lower brace.

I look odd but meh (:

On a different, unrelated note, I can't believe how fast time has gone! Now coming to the end of my first term of my second year of uni, which I have really really enjoyed. I have a house instead of halls, I've chosen the modules I want to study and enjoy, doing really well with violin (which is a good thing to hear from Carmel I guess) and generally getting on well with life.

And then Christmas I guess? Gives me a while to break in my braces before the ultimate test that is Christmas dinner :P:P

Sorry it's been a while! The situation after my appointment I was quite eager about back in June was just, well, confused. All that actually happened was I got some brackets put on the back teeth of my lower arch. I guess I was expecting more stuff to happen. And also the confusion! First I needed impressions for a quad helix (spaces the upper arch I think?) and then no a change of mind it was straight to the fixed braces. Then again it changed to a removable appliance with fixed on the lower arch, changed to just fixed all the way - even though I'd be constantly be breaking the brace on my upper arch because of my bite in the first place. I was just like... huh?
Well now it's August and a plan of action has finally come forth. The orthodontist told me she'd been thinking about my case a lot (trust me to be complex). And it actually transpires that even after having six massive teeth taken out in the hospital under GA, they want me to have a further two out before the fixed braces can go on, and in order to fix the braces they need to disengage my bite (when they described this to me I actually had the mental image of Lego bricks being glued to my back teeth).
So all in all I'm rather apprehensive about the extractions seeing as I'm gonna be concious (man the hell up Beth!) Sorry to be moany and all ): But on a happier note there is a PLAN :D I've also signed the consent form for the whole treatment (eek!) Oh, and I passed my first year of uni since my last blog ^-^
Hope everyone else's treatments are going well... hopefully slightly more straightforward than this one anyway! xx

Everything's happening! It's so exciting!
Went to my appointment, and went to clinical photography for the first time (very strange experience there)
I now also have elastic spacers between my back teeth, that feel very odd, to make room for the brace - which I am getting in 5 days! Yaaay!
There's no point taking a picture of the spacers, seeing as the flash on my camera is pretty naff, and the spacers are pretty small. They are bright blue. Although from a distance they look like misplaced fillings D:
But yes, everything's starting now. After 10 long years I think my orthognathic journey may have finally begun!
Happy Beth! :D :D

This is me! Hopefully less scary and normal looking from front view anyway! Not an amazing photo, taken in the early hours of the morning when I should be  writing my programme notes (yes I'm a music student!) :P

So... lets get this up and running!
I'm Beth, I'm 19 and from the UK, and am currently about to start treatment to correct a skeletal discrepancy in the form of a class III malocclusion. Complex words huh? So in normal terms... an under bite.
I thought I'd start blogging about my treatment as I've found other people's blogs about their personal journey extremely helpful. I also hope that this will (eventually) serve the same purpose to other people contemplating having a similar treatment or procedure (:

Reasons?

So some people may ask, why do you want to go through with this?
Unfortunately I'm starting to get slightly fed up with people saying, "There's nothing wrong with you/I can't see anything wrong/you don't need this treatment!" Which makes me feel obliged to explain why I'm starting out on this.

1. Putting Demons from the past to bed. 

People have noticed my bite when it was a lot more worse than what it currently is now, and the clever few who did soon made it even more noticeable to others and made most of my school life living hell.

2. No Dentures Please. 

So the way things are now are literally putting a lot of pressure on the roots of my teeth. I'm hoping this treatment will preserve my teeth till beyond 30 something.

3. Side Profile! D:
Yes, I don't like it, and people in a similar boat to me will completely understand. Photo's should hopefully make this clear. No one should be ashamed of taking action about how they look.. As selfish as it sounds, it's all about you, no one else!



4. Confidence! 
From middle school I had a huge dip in my confidence levels due to my lovely classroom peers. I feel like this is exactly what I need to help things look up.

5. Eating 
Personally, I feel I can do this quite well :P However my new found love of raw carrots and humus (random I know!) has proved things different. I only have one or two teeth touching at the back, which makes food like this quite difficult.

(6. Sleep Apnea) 
This doesn't affect me personally, and am very thankful for it, but I thought this would be worth putting this down for others. Breathing can be affected when sleeping which can of course be dangerous. This type of procedure would help correct it.

Treatment so far... 


I have been attending the clinic at hospital for 10 years, so since I was 9.
I have had different removable braces for about 6 years, which has made some difference to my bite, and to some extent made it less noticeable. However this turned out to be unsuccessful in terms of treatment. After 6 years the braces didn't achieve what they had been set out to do.

Since the braces were deemed unsuccessful I have enjoyed a few short years of complete brace-free bliss!

Never actually took a picture of my face (wasn't considering blogging back then) so have a picture of the funky hospital accessories, complete with the odd thing that replaced my cannula and a trippy towel to bleed on :P - I think the after affects of this surgery was similar to the jaw surgery but on a much quicker healing time scale (bruising, swelling, bleeding etc)

February 2011 saw a minor procedure done under general anaesthetic. This was to remove 6 molars, most of which were impacted, also including wisdom teeth. This was to create room for future jaw surgery. Theatre lasted about an hour, and apart from a few complications regarding sinuses, it was over with and went well. I also perhaps experienced a little of what was to come, what with considerable difficulties in eating, smiling, laughing and communicating!

Now everything's healed, and I can crack on with the *groan* next two years of fixed braces! This is necessary to make the surgery run as smoothly as possible, however it will initially worsen my bite which I am not at all looking forward to ):

I think that's a fair first post. This blog will truly kick off in around 2 years.
Would also like to wish anybody else having this kind of procedure all the luck in the world (:
Beth x