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