New Records

I got some of my newest records from my orthodontist so I can take them to the consult I have with Arnett & Gunson in a few weeks.  I look at these as the straw that broke the camels back since it's what made my ortho finally sit back and realized it was probably a lost cause trying to fix everything.  Well,  not everything, but particularly the molds are what made all the hope drain from his expression the day I saw him mount them and get a first look.  And it drives me crazy that I wake up one morning and my bite feels better and I think "wait, maybe he can fix it!" and then the next day it feels so far off again and I truly believe there is no hope.

THIS is the cool looking 3d xray thing I was trying to get posted a few weeks ago.  I can not for the life of me figure out how to view and get it off the disc they gave me.  Maybe it's just not there. 

So... those were kind of the good.  Well, maybe not good per say, but at least better.  Now for some of the ugly.

I almost want to say my teeth meet up better than what is actually in these models, particularly on my right side, but for the most part you can see how bad my bite is here.  Teeth aren't sitting together in the right spots at all.  My left side is so screwed.  Definitely feels better after some of the adjustments he's made though.

And new head shots.  I'm still pretty puffy in these.  I've dropped a bit more swelling just in the last 10 days or so around my upper lip and nose and under my chin, and still think there is just a little more to go.  I kind of feel like I have a chimp face.  I really hope that is just swelling and not that they advanced my jaws too far forward.  I guess at this point if they did, then they can go in and redo that too!  Just add it to the list of crap that needs to be fixed!  ::sigh::

And just for a little comparison for grins:

Is there aesthetic improvement between the two?  For sure.  Even with my crooked smile, left over swelling, and everything else, I think there is improvement there.  But I didn't do this to look better and loose functionality in the process.  I'm 30.  I'm married.  I spent my whole life with my face like it was and I've got no reason to go out of my way to try looking like a celebrity or something at this point.  The whole reason I invested this much money into my mouth to this point was to get my teeth to a 'normal' state where they could be cleaned better and I could better take care of them to have them the rest of my life.  At the state I started with, it wasn't going to happen.  I would loose teeth early.  I'm already down that one molar in the back and I am way too young to be having teeth pulled already.  I wanted teeth that would bite into certain foods that I spent my life not biting in to, or biting in to and having problems.  So, my problem now is I could care less about any slight improvements there might have been from this surgery-- and I didn't even care that much to begin with.  The one thing I cared about, the one thing that mattered most to me, was functionality, and I'm now sitting with a worse bite than I had before the surgery... and even before I was in braces for that matter.  My gummy smile is mostly gone (well, on one side anyway).  Whooppedty freaking do.  I'd trade that back for my old bite in a heart beat at this point.