From Start to Finish

There's nothing really new to report.  Still wearing my retainers full time and will be doing so until July.  After that, I'll only have to wear them while I sleep.  Here are a couple groups of pictures I put together.  The one shows the progress from the front view and the other is the view of the roof of my mouth from start to finish.  Enjoy!


Front View - Top two pictures are from before surgery.  The next three pictures are during the expansion process and the final picture is from when my braces came off.

Roof View - The top two pictures are from before surgery.  Notice the expander in the middle two pictures getting wider.  The bottom left picture shows the full expansion and the last picture is after my braces came off.

Free at Last!

[ (January 25th, 2015) (1 year and 11 months post surgery, 1 year and 10 months post braces) ]

On January 9th, the braces came off!  In under 2 years, I went from a mouth full of problems to a perfect smile.  It's been a crazy ride of expanding my palate, a huge tooth gap, using wax as a fake tooth, and then bringing it all back together.

For the next 6 months, I have to wear a retainer all the time besides eating and brushing my teeth.  After that, I'll only have to wear the retainers when I sleep.  The orthodontist also put a permanent retainer on the backs of my bottom front six teeth.  This is pretty much the finish line to my story.  When I get some extra time, I'll put together some before and after pics.  Here's the finished product as of now.

Permanent retainer on the back of my bottom front teeth

With the retainers on