Still here.... and still in limbo a bit. I'm moving forward with my new surgeon. He's done a lot of investigative work to find out what I had done, how far I was moved, and what needs to be done to move forward from here. He overlayed my preop and postop xrays and scans to get measurements. I didn't think I could be surprised by what he told me, but somehow it managed to be worse than I thought. My upper jaw was moved forward a whole 3-4mm, which was not at all part of my surgical plan. Granted, I wan never given the exact measurements (despite having asked multiple times both preop and postop for them), but I was told my upper jaw would only come forward a "smidge." I don't think 4mm is a smidge! No wonder I can't close my lips comfortably and have cramping/strain around my mouth now!! He tried to put the pieces together to see why in the hell my surgeon would do such a thing, and he thinks my surgical plan was doomed from the start. I started with an 8mm overbite/overjet. Definitely measurements that put me into the significant deformity category, which is why my surgery was considered medically necessary.
My orthodontist reduced my 8mm down to 4mm at one point. This was the point where I felt like my bite got incredibly better and I was thinking "hhmm... wonder if I can live with this overbite forever like this and back out of the surgery." I know people on all the jaw surgery forums usually complain about their bite getting worse and not better, so it raised some red flags for me. I even brought it up to my ortho at an appointment a few months before surgery and I said to him "isn't my overbite supposed to be getting worse?" and he told me that everything was fine and kind of brushed me off. So, with only 4-5mm of space to work with, my surgeon had no room to move my lower jaw forward the 5-6mm it needed to come. So, her wack-a-doo plan at that point was to move my upper jaw forward 4mm to give her room. Even with that, she only moved my lower jaw forward 4mm. I have a 5mm overbite right now again, and my new surgeon said he absolutely would not be able to operate on me since he has no space to move the upper jaw back and bring the lower jaw forward some more. He phoned my ortho last week to have a chat with him. I have a feeling my ortho got served up some humble pie when he was told he is largely a part of the surgical failure in terms of the planning. Ultimately the surgeon is to blame, but he definitely is not getting out of this clean. So, now the plan is to jump through some hoops on the ortho side and get my lower teeth back, my upper arch as far forward as possible (which is exactly the opposite of how my ortho is setting me up now with a power chain on to pull my upper teeth back/in). My surgeon has requested new 3d xrays and wants models every month or two to monitor my progress. The other issue with this is my root resorption. Most of the specialists I am seeing think I should just progress forward with the ortho and get ready for surgery again, but I've also had some suggestions that I should take a 3 month break from any orthodontic movement to allow the roots of my teeth to settle and halt the resorption for a bit. I don't know what to do when it comes to that. I trust the specialists I am with now, and if the team wants to proceed, then who am I to stop them. Then again... can I really trust anybody now? I've been right about everything so far, so I should probably trust my instincts on this one, which is I've got nothing to loose except for a few months of my time if I choose to pause treatment.
So, I get the xrays and a teeth cleaning on Thurs. I am dreading the cleaning because I don't want to get my wires taken out. That loose tooth up front just feels like it's going to fall out all together without the wires on. I hate that feeling. And I know my prosthodontist who is giving me the cleaning is probably going to poke and prod it a bit. No bueno. I guess my surgeon is going to look over the xrays and go from there. So, we'll see what happens!
My orthodontist reduced my 8mm down to 4mm at one point. This was the point where I felt like my bite got incredibly better and I was thinking "hhmm... wonder if I can live with this overbite forever like this and back out of the surgery." I know people on all the jaw surgery forums usually complain about their bite getting worse and not better, so it raised some red flags for me. I even brought it up to my ortho at an appointment a few months before surgery and I said to him "isn't my overbite supposed to be getting worse?" and he told me that everything was fine and kind of brushed me off. So, with only 4-5mm of space to work with, my surgeon had no room to move my lower jaw forward the 5-6mm it needed to come. So, her wack-a-doo plan at that point was to move my upper jaw forward 4mm to give her room. Even with that, she only moved my lower jaw forward 4mm. I have a 5mm overbite right now again, and my new surgeon said he absolutely would not be able to operate on me since he has no space to move the upper jaw back and bring the lower jaw forward some more. He phoned my ortho last week to have a chat with him. I have a feeling my ortho got served up some humble pie when he was told he is largely a part of the surgical failure in terms of the planning. Ultimately the surgeon is to blame, but he definitely is not getting out of this clean. So, now the plan is to jump through some hoops on the ortho side and get my lower teeth back, my upper arch as far forward as possible (which is exactly the opposite of how my ortho is setting me up now with a power chain on to pull my upper teeth back/in). My surgeon has requested new 3d xrays and wants models every month or two to monitor my progress. The other issue with this is my root resorption. Most of the specialists I am seeing think I should just progress forward with the ortho and get ready for surgery again, but I've also had some suggestions that I should take a 3 month break from any orthodontic movement to allow the roots of my teeth to settle and halt the resorption for a bit. I don't know what to do when it comes to that. I trust the specialists I am with now, and if the team wants to proceed, then who am I to stop them. Then again... can I really trust anybody now? I've been right about everything so far, so I should probably trust my instincts on this one, which is I've got nothing to loose except for a few months of my time if I choose to pause treatment.
So, I get the xrays and a teeth cleaning on Thurs. I am dreading the cleaning because I don't want to get my wires taken out. That loose tooth up front just feels like it's going to fall out all together without the wires on. I hate that feeling. And I know my prosthodontist who is giving me the cleaning is probably going to poke and prod it a bit. No bueno. I guess my surgeon is going to look over the xrays and go from there. So, we'll see what happens!
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