Early Christmas Present!!

[ (December 20th, 2014) (1 year and 10 months post surgery, 1 year and 9 months post braces) ]

Since the last time I posted 4 months ago, there have only been a few changes.  My teeth were pretty much straight, but there were some "black triangles" that they wanted to work on.  Since my gums have receded a bit, there were small triangle shaped spaces between some of my teeth.  Every 3 weeks, I would have an appointment and they would file in between my teeth at the bottoms so the spaces would disappear at the top.

Saw the orthodontist 2 days ago and received awesome news!  At my next appointment on January 9th, they are going to remove my braces a month short of the original 2 year projection.  The next post you'll see from me will be braces free!


Goodbye black triangles (top photo from August, bottom photo from today)

Something's Missing

[ (August 21st, 2014) (1 year and 6 months post surgery, 1 year and 5 months post braces) ]

It's been over a year and a half since the SARPE surgery took place and finally the roof of my mouth is free.  They took the device out a few months back and I couldn't be happier. The area was tender at first, but it was a whole lot better than having food constantly stuck up there.

The orthodontist was worried that I would need additional surgery to pull my lower jaw in.  Every six weeks the orthodontist gave me new bands to position differently on my teeth to try to pull my jaw into place and to everyone's surprise, it worked.  It looks like I won't need another surgery!  For the most part my teeth are aligned and there are only a few gaps which are very small.  Hopefully I can get these braces off soon!

This is the positioning of the bands now.  They are hooked to the 4th and 5th tooth on the top and bottom row on both sides.  I only have to wear them when I'm sleeping now instead of all day.

You can see that the top row of teeth are fitting over the bottom row nicely and that most gaps are closed or are minimal.

No more SARPE device, I'm free!

Over a Year in Now

[ (April 13th, 2014) (1 year and 2 months post surgery, 1 year and 1 month post braces) ]

It's been almost a half a year since my last post and nothing much has really changed since then.  I still see the orthodontist every six weeks.  They usually give me stronger wires every time I go in and they'll tie teeth together differently to close all the gaps.  The only difference is, now that my top row of teeth are becoming straighter, I'm starting to develop an underbite.  From the beginning of this process, they told me that an underbite would be a possibility and that I may need a second surgery to pull my bottom jaw back.  To try to avoid that surgery, they have me connecting bands from my top row of teeth to my bottom row of teeth.  Hopefully that works out so I don't have to go under the knife again.


Here you can kind of see the underbite, my top front two teeth are tucked behind the bottom teeth.  The little triangle gap between those teeth is slowly going away too.

Here's the view with the bands in.