Day 60 - I LOVE FOOD

Wow. I don't remember food being this good before surgery :) I AM SO HAPPY GUYS. chewing is the best thing ever. not taking that for granted again.

i had Chipotle last night.. yummmm, and had some scotcheroos today. is chewing weird? yes. but it doesn't hurt and i am grateful for that, although my jaw does ache a bit tonight, i may have overdone it with everything that i ate today.

getting ready for school and golf and robotics and show choir to all start. im gonna go insane with how busy i'll be, so i am savoring my last couple of days. hopefully soon ill be able to forget about jaw surgery for longer periods during the day :)

sorry this is a short post.. i guess i really am just far enough out from surgery to have less and less to say. that is exciting. but ill write a ton on monday for my 9 weeks post. just am kinda lazy tonight :P

take care to all, there is a light at the end of the tunnel :)
-Katie:)

Day 59 - well... at least i can chew again!!

YAY. I can chew. long story short.. ahha. but ill back up to my appt.

my surgeon checked to make sure my plates and jaw position wasn't unstable or moving. and said it was all stable and healed super well, so yay for that :) makes me feel better about putting pressure on my jaws by chewing. he then tested me opening and closing my mouth and didn't notice any clicking in my jaw.. so said i should resume eating. he said the clicking isn't anything major as long as it isn't hindering how far i can open my mouth... and with that... he said i need to keep at opening my jaw wider, i am now at 27 mm and need to be at least 35 mm wide. so i am continuing with my exercises with my tongue depressors! haha... he said by my next appt in 2 weeks i need to be at 30 mm. so i better get at it.. i want to be able to open wider too. especially with singing..! show choir started up this week! and im so happy for that, absolutely love show choir... singing and dancing on stage is just too much fun. and we get to sing parts of Phantom.. who doesnt love that theme?! woo :)

hmm... other things, i got back to school on tuesday. so i am going to stop doing daily posts starting monday (at 9 weeks post op). because ill be too busy to post... and also I've started to have less and less to say... which must be a good thing!! :) but trust me, ill still keep this updated, itll be weird not to write in this before i go to bed every night....

also, my birthday is a week from today! so yay for that.

in chewing news... i tried chewing on my way home from the appt (grabbed a cookie from the downstairs cafe at the hospital which was delicious btw) and the clicking was minimal, so hopefully that goes away eventually :( super annoying....

as far as pain goes at this point, some days i feel absolutely no pain. just some discomfort still, but other days, like today, i have some areas that ache. yesterday the left side of my lower jaw ached while today the right side does. it isn't bad enough for me to feel like i need medicine (trying to stay away from all of that, even motrin and tylenol). if it ever gets bad enough ill take medicine, but luckily i can easily manage without it!

until tomorrow,
-Katie:)

Day 58 - Another Before/After

Well guys... nothing new to report today. just here. NOT chewing. just what i wanted :\

But anyway... I had another college visit today that went well :) need to get my stupid essays done for all of these applications... ahh.... major stressing about to happen. but ill just shove that to the back of my mind and pretend that it doesn't exist. as i do with all of my problems. including the fact that my jaw clicks and im not allowed to chew and i need to have a visit with my surgeon tomorrow instead of in about 3 weeks. but la la la la... im ignoring anything negative tonight. i will be in bed reading a book for fun (instead of my summer book for school..oops) haha.

the before was taken on my drive to the hospital the morning of surgery. thought the angles were similar enough to compare. yay for my new profile:) weird how it changed my nose, not bad, just different.

hey, quick random question/comment. so i feel like my face (all throughout recovery) has always swelled up more from the heat. so today for example, on my college tour, it was fairly warm outside and my face just begins to feel wet (weird numbness sensations) and just feels like a puff-ball. i don't know if it makes a huge difference physically to other people, but it sure feels noticeable and uncomfortable to me. anyone else experience this at all...?

fingers crossed for a good appointment tomorrow, hope all is well with you guys :)
-Katie:)

Day 57 - :( One step forward, two steps back (not allowed to chew again)

So... I mentioned in my last post how the left side of my jaw was clicking when i ate... so we called my surgeon's office to let them know. They just called back... and said that they don't want me chewing anymore and that my surgeon wants to see me in a couple days. sigh. just when things were getting better.... I don't think i have anything else to say... :(

at least i could barely notice any swelling today. that is a first for me.

as always, take care.

-Katie:)

Day 56 - 8 WEEKS!! - i can chew! (well.. kinda)

THE DAY HAS ARRIVED GUYS. as you can tell im pretty happy. best day ever. :)

i can chew. whoopee :)

my day started off with an early 7:30 am appt with my orthodontist. okay, i know i posted a little bit ago about the whole ordeal with rubber bands on the front of my mouth and the communication issues between my surgeon and ortho and their offices... blah. so today i finally got scheduled with my orthodontist. first they pulled out my lower wire. ouch! only to put the same one back in.... :\ did they really have to torture me that extra amount for no reason? they then switched my top wire, and i still have boxes with rubber bands... on the sides... just smaller boxes. i realized they weren't putting bands on the front... which is what my surgeon wanted... so i asked my ortho about this... cause i was concerned and confused. he told me that my front 2 teeth slightly were overlapping one another and so the band on the front would only worsen that. which i guess makes sense.. hopefully my surgeon is okay with this? anyway... so i go back to see my ortho in 4 weeks. all of the nurses/assistants there were all over me again asking how i was, even ones that i barely recognized! so weird (in a good way) and cool that they all know about me and such :) it was very nice of them.

after my early morning appt... (i have been suffering all day from not getting a ton of sleep last night :P better get on a better schedule again, oops!) i walked into my kitchen contemplating whether i wanted an egg or smoothie when suddenly it hit me. i could try something new. i immediately went for the cinnamon-sugar toast. well... i just microwaved it so it would be soft, so actually it would be bread not toast :P and then just put a ton of butter on it. and had my first attempt at chewing! after EIGHT WEEKS of nothing. wow. the first thing i would call it is.. weird. really weird. it feels like hmm.... like i am chewing a piece of rubber. because i feel like my jaw isnt strong enough to bite down completely on everything. just kinda squishes the food down enough to swallow. and it kinda gives me a headache. and my left jaw started clicking/popping which has me super worried..... i hope this goes away :( so i need to start practicing and reteaching myself how to chew! was i expecting it to be hard to chew? yes. was i successful at chewing? only a tiny bit. was it still amazing? YES:)

so, one of my friends texted me since she knew today was the big day. she came and picked me up and we adventured through target. i decided that what i wanted the most today, was potato chips. i figured they would dissolve easy enough to make them manageable to chew. so we picked up 2 bags and just sat and watched a movie and netflix together all afternoon. it was pretty great. :) i basically ate potato chips for both lunch and dinner and am not even ashamed to admit it! ill go back to eating "healthy" stuff tomorrow... today was a special day.

In regards to the whole chewing thing, itll take a while to get anywhere near normal. Today, i started to get sores underneath my top lip and cheeks from rubbing against my braces... whether this is from talking a lot, or the ortho adjustment this morning, or chewing, i have no clue. but it makes it hurt to talk! so hopefuly those heal up quickly. i may be wearing wax tomorrow.

also... i wanted to complain quickly about the numbness still around my incision areas or areas in the back of my mouth still being numb, because now that i can chew, i got food stuck in all sorts of places in my mouth and didnt notice for a while! so annoying... don't know the best way to clean that out besides just brushing my teeth (since im not allowed to use my water pick yet). so ill just be brushing my teeth a lot for a while...

so! since this is a big "8 week" post... ill write more about how i am feeling/doing overall

sleep - i can now sleep on my face without pain, so yay for sleeping curled up in a ball:)

energy - normal! i havent exercised yet mostly because it feels weird on my face to run and/or jump... the pain is slowly going down. but i feel like it would be kinda painful for me. i could tough it out if necessary though!

numbness
so this is getting harder and harder to explain. ill start off by saying that i can "feel" everywhere i touch except for my gums on my top teeth. which is pretty great. now.. i have a TON of partial numbness though. the inside of my mouth has the most numbness. areas around the incisions are pretty numb. hmm, so are the insides of my cheeks. my left cheek is way more numb than my right though which is weird. the areas on either side of nose are the most numb on the outside of my face. but idk, it is really hard to tell what is numb and what isnt and what is tingly, idk! just all runs together. ill include in this part this my face is still stiff. smiling is still a tad awkward. and yeah

random stuff now... so... im still working on getting to open my mouth wider, im slowly making progress! im at about 28 mm, and gotta get to 35 mm. hopefully i can! cause it makes singing easier when i can actually open my mouth.

my nose still is annoying... pretty sure i have a deviated septum now :\ so i can almost never breathe out of the left side of my nose... but idk. we'll see what happens in the future...

i am still not taking any medicine for pain, even though sometimes i have it, it isn't bad enough to take medicine normally. yay for that :) i have a lot of headaches though... and just random aches. but oh well. gets better by the day still.

swelling is pretty much gone. some people say they notice it, some don't. not sure what to believe, i feel kinda puffy, but i think this is mostly just from the remaining numbness and stiffness.

anyway, i think i got enough into this post... overall things are great :) hope all is great with anyone still reading this. a big thanks if you are :) this blog has been amazing. much love.

-Katie:)

Day 55 - Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow!

So today i have been humming (and singing of course!) Tomorrow from Annie. because, tomorrow, I GET TO CHEW. hence, i completely love tomorrow. and am excited. if you can't tell.
yay
yay
yay
yay:)

I am a tiny bit terrified that either A) I wont be able to chew anything... or B) it'll hurt a ton...

but hey, gotta try! i am just so ready to chew. and i know it maybe isn't the biggest deal ever to most people... BUT this is what i have been looking forward to for ages. so fingers crossed that my diet goes back to normal quickly!

Since tomorrow is also 8 weeks ill write up some huge long post about everything i can possibly think of :P so ill quit going on about nothing tonight! hope all is well with you guys :)

-Katie:)

Day 54 - Patience and Positivity

If there is one thing i have learned throughout this recovery.... it is how vital patience is. I am not the most patient person.... as i'm sure you can all tell by my posts and their complaining nature :P I feel like a lot of things in this recovery revolve around waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting... waiting for swelling to go down... waiting for numbness to disappear... waiting to be able to chew... waiting for normalcy. BUT, I wanted to say things probably aren't as bad as how they may have seemed this whole time!! i have just used this blog mostly to complain. because venting about everything just makes it better. but sometimes i feel like i havent always done a good job of including all of the "good" things in my recovery. overall things are great. i promise!

I don't need to take any medicine for pain, my swelling is pretty much gone, all of my stitches fell out, my numbness gets better by the day, and my energy is normal! sometimes i even forget that i had jaw surgery, well.. until i get hungry and realize i can only eat so many things.. so monday will be the next step for things going back completely to normal! CAN'T WAIT. it is one thing to suck on bread until it is mushy enough to swallow vs. chewing it. food tastes so much better when you can chew. i promise. haha.

plus... i am still loving my profile. yay for no overbite!! or open bite for that matter. I'm obsessed with the fact that when i bite down my teeth all touch! not just my very back right molars.

best of luck to all of you guys going through this whole process as well, take care :)

-Katie:)

Day 53 - No Chew Diet... FOOD LIST

Okay, so today (since i can't think of anything better to ramble on about) i am just going to compile a huge list of everything that i discovered i could eat without chewing. This isnt necessarily a "liquid" diet... but i was able to mash all of these foods well enough with a fork to choke them down with little effort without chewing, which was/is my constraint! But, ill start with what i ate the first week when i was completely banded shut and had to use a syringe. because i battled a ton of nausea though... i didn't eat a ton. resulting in me losing 7 pounds the first week... which is quite a lot for how tiny i am already. but, i stopped losing weight after i discovered i could eat mashed cake after being unbanded :P anyway... here is a long list!

Liquids (stuff i ate through the syringe in the hospital..)

• apple and grape juice (my favorites to mix with the icky medicine)
• sprite/ginger ale and other sodas hurt a tiny bit on my throat, but helped my stomach settle
• gatorade/powerade is a major must
• smoothies - as long as they were melted enough! (no seeds)
• Boost Breeze - this was my main way of getting in calories, each 8 fl oz juice box had 250 calories and 9 grams of protein. they tasted like jello to me, i like orange the best! (i couldnt stand the taste of things like ensure... as i hate the taste of milk (probably from being lactose intolerant.))
• Tomato soup was awesome too. My only complaint was that it coated the back of my throat and teeth.. and as i couldn't brush my teeth it just made me feel gross. plus, it made it harder to breathe as my throat felt so clogged.
• Chicken broth, can't go wrong with this
• any other blended soup or food for that matter.. i never found one i liked very much.. and as i only needed to use syringes for a week, i never ventured too far with blended things.

No-Chew Foods (now... i kinda do a "half-chew" with my tongue and just used saliva to get most of these things down, some of them hurt my throat a tiny bit, but is was SO worth it... there was NO way i was going to eat blended foods for 2 months... that was too gross for me.) 

after every single one of these items, just add on in your head "mashed with a fork" my fork did all of the "chewing" for me!

Breakfast

• scrambled eggs 
• pancakes (cut them up SUPER tiny and then add a lot of syrup and peanut butter for protein-YUM)
• hashbrowns -mashed.. these were harder to get down, but you can always douse them in syrup
• yogurt of course! (just had to take my lactose intolerant medicine)
• fruit - i discovered that i could swallow raspberries and blackberries if they were overripe and squishy, if i mashed them up, also! i enjoyed almost rotten peaches mashed with a fork, and bananas (with peanut butter). other soft fruits work mashed up too!
• applesauce (this was my GO-TO thing to eat in the middle of the night when my medicine said to take "with food" so that my stomach wouldn't hurt)
• smoothies - i got really good at making these myself, i just pour in apple juice and cran-raspberry juice, then frozen mixed berries, and frozen bananas, and blended it up! then i would add in Miralax, which i have used to keep my stomach issues at bay... and if it was sour, i could always dump in a ton of sugar!)

Lunch/Dinner

• soups.. of course.. but i got sick of those... so i quit eating soup. i hate soup now actually.  
• spaghetti (and other noodles)- okay, everyone always makes so much fun of me... because i cut up the noodles SUPER tiny and relatively quickly! i am pretty darn good at it by now.. haha. but this was one of my main meals for the longest time. i also found these tiny "circle" noodles that i didnt even have to cut up! they slipped right down my throat, yay
• sloppy joes - just the inside of course :P
• ice cream
• baked beans
• black beans and rice and salsa all mixed together
• rice - with different sauces, mexican, chinese, etc
• refried beans
• chili
• cornbread casserole - best. thing. ever.
• mashed potatoes - definitely one of the main things i have eaten!
• CAKE - just put extra frosting on and mash with fork. SO amazing.
• peanut butter (just on a spoon. mix in honey too. yum.)
• melted chocolate
• mini lollipops
• the inside of tacos (ground beef, cheese, salsa, rice, all mixed together, yum)
• stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and turkey (shredded) and all mixed together

my mashed strawberries! these took forever to cut up... but were beyond delicious. so worth it.

A huge thanks to those of you still reading..! Hope all is well.

-Katie:)

Day 52 - Running? No Thanks...

Some days my jaw feels better than others... which is to be expected. But lately i just keep feeling like im having a "bad day" over and over and over again. but i still have improvements!

one thing i wanted to complain about today was the my face is still breaking out more than normal!! i used to never have to "wash" my face with anything special and i would rarely break out. but now... i have lots of issues unless i wash it.. and even then, just kinda gross! thank goodness for makeup to cover up the issue spots... just hope it goes back to normal eventually... has anyone else experienced this after surgery?

I was on the golf course today, and I was feeling restless and just lightly ran back to the cart from my ball. and I noticed that my face still feels weird and hurts from all that motion! i have not exercised since before surgery... i have the energy to. but idk... im just avoiding it. jumping and running just makes my jaw hurt! like my cheeks moving up and down just isnt pleasant. so ill just hope it gets better soon? is it this bad for anyone else this far out from surgery...? i just feel like it should be more normal by now!

I REALLY WANT TO BE ABLE TO CHEW... my jaw doesn't really hurt, and i feel like i should be allowed to by now! just gotta wait until monday... which is easier said than done, but itll get here eventually!

can't. wait.

until tomorrow,

-Katie:)

Day 50 - I GET TO CHEW SOON.

YAY. guess what... well i guess the title says it all, I get to chew soon! but ill backtrack to this morning with my appt with my surgeon. After waiting for quite a while... we got in to see him. My surgeon said that i looked great, and said that starting monday (8 weeks post-op) i can officially begin to chew!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. if you can't tell, i am overly excited. i mean.. i realize that ill have to go slowly and reteach myself how to chew... but im so pumped regardless. my surgeon said the goal is to slowly work my way up with the hardness of food. and hopefully by 12 weeks.. i will be able to have steak. so yeah! i decided that on monday, i want arby's curly fries. those sound wonderful. but this week will consist of me making a list of all the food i have been craving the last 7 weeks! then my surgeon said he will see me back in 3 weeks. school starts 2 weeks from today..... so in 2 weeks ill get insanely busy and it may seem like i slipped off the face of the planet. but ill be here!

but anyway, after the appt with my surgeon, we had lunch in the hospital cafeteria before our hour drive home (the cafeteria almost always has mushy food!) and i found lasagna that i could mash up, and THEN i ran into one of my favorite nurses from when i was in the hospital. she was the one that was assigned to me the day i had to be readmitted to the hospital for nausea and pain that we couldnt get under control at home.. and she was amazing and so nice. and yeah. so i gave her a big hug and said thanks for everything and she said i looked so great now and asked how i was etc. the nurses in my surgeons office kept saying how the swelling looked great and that i looked great, and it just made me feel happy. so yay for looking somewhat normal!

my surgeon and orthodontist finally are trying to get my surgical hooks back on in the front so i can have a band in the front to help guide my jaw still. gosh.... that was so irritating that they couldn't get this figured out. i already ranted about me never getting an appt with my ortho because he claimed i didn't need the band up front.. but then my surgeon said otherwise, and yeah. so i should get an ortho appt either tomorrow or the next day. but we will see, im fine with wearing rubber bands if it means my braces come off sooner! (and my bite gets better).

now please excuse me while i constantly wish for it to be monday already... haha. but seriously...
take care everyone!
-Katie:)

Day 49 - SEVEN WEEKS. :) :)

GUESS WHAT. 7 weeks today since surgery!!! woooooooooo. today has been the best day since surgery i think. by far. i just magically feel pretty darn good :)

at 8 weeks ill do a huge long update about every single little issue, but tonight im just choosing to ramble on about nonsense, so i apologize.

let's see, i had a milkshake tonight.. and figured i could try to use a straw since i was cleared to use those, but NO. just no. huge headache. don't try it... takes a lot of effort with something that thick... ouch!

today was a momentous day, for part of the day i forgot that i had jaw surgery. WOW. I didn't think that would ever happen... as either the pain or numbness has been a constant reminder of this whole ordeal. but i hope i have more parts of the day where i forget :) i was reminded again once i realized that i couldn't chew anything... oops...

BUT, originally my surgeon said i could chew at 8 weeks post op! so ONE WEEK LEFT. hopefully. fingers crossed. I have an appointment with him tomorrow and i will update on that! it is still hard to tell myself that i can't chew when i don't have any pain... you guys that got the "ok" to chew early on are VERY lucky, please enjoy your ability to chew. please.

my teeth continue to ache as if i had just gotten my braces on. but could be worse.

swelling is pretty much gone!! whoopee. i went out to lunch with some friends today, one of them said she couldn't notice it anymore, and the other said, hey, your facial features look more normal now! and i consider both compliments. woo:)

these next ones i just though were a good comparison of before/after

before                                                            after

since my teeth actually come together now... i feel like my face is more round and not as long... not sure if this is good or bad, but not complaining, i love my bite too much! overall i feel like i look pretty much the same. but i guess in the old pictures i got really good at sliding my jaw forward! so i wont have to worry about icky profile shots now i suppose.

so... i grind my teeth at night.. and i feel like this is making me wake up with really bad headaches and jaw aches lately... if you read my first post ever, i think i talked about it. so i am going to bring it up with my surgeon tomorrow and see what he says about it... cause all the pressure from it just hurts!

anyway, ill update tomorrow after my appointment with my surgeon, maybe ill have good news!

hope all is well with you guys!

-Katie:)

Day 46 - Pictures Galore (Before/After)

Okay... so today i am forcing myself to put together a bunch of pictures showing before/after and the progress i've made in recovery! even though it is kinda a pain...

today i feel much better than i did yesterday, must have just been a random bad day. i guess we all have those sometimes. my numbness is back to being less bothersome, and my face doesn't ache as much. no need for medicine! yay.

So tonight i got to hang out with the golf girls and our coach, and it was the first time i had seen some of them since surgery. my coach said that someone said that i looked completely different now, which surprised me. maybe just the swelling? she kinda agreed with them and said i still look puffy to her. which is great. i hate when people say "oh you can't notice that you are swollen..." because obviously i am. and i don't want to be stuck like this forever. so no use pretending i look perfectly normal. but anyway, it was weird trying to talk about this whole experience to them in just a few words. they all asked how my jaw was doing, and i just don't have a short explanation for that! this whole recovery has  just been SO much for me. too overwhelming. but i did my best to explain, they were the most perplexed on how i have managed to go this long without chewing. but it isn't the worst thing in the world. i am pretty darn amazing at swallowing and mashing food. haha. really... the only thing i want is some carrots and cucumbers dipped in ranch and some wheat thins or potato chips.

anyway.... here is a mish-mash of photos.

these 3 are of today

here is my attempt at putting some pictures together

Before                                                                                          After (so far)

i am just so thrilled with the fact that all my teeth touch now, i don't even care how my profile or face has changed. as long as the swelling goes away eventually i don't even really care. fingers crossed that my jaw pain will not be an issue like it was before the surgery. anyway, take care all! thanks for reading :) until next time...

-Katie:)

Day 45 - New Kind of Numb

So today for some reason my entire face feels SOOO different. and i don't think i can explain it well, but here goes.

Okay so the numbness i felt after surgery didn't feel exactly like the numbness feeling i would feel after having a shot of novocain for cavities etc. I just couldn't feel my face. but today i woke up and the inside of my left cheek just feels heavy and numb as if i just had a cavity filled. the inside of my right cheek isnt numb in the center but if i move my tongue either up or down to touch the stitches, it feels more numb. Maybe this is just all due to the fact that more of the feeling is coming back, so it just makes the patches that are numb more apparent?? no clue..

I JUST FEEL REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE TODAY. way worse than i have in over a week :(

You know the feeling after you clench your jaw/teeth together really tightly for a long time? i feel like that today, maybe because i know i grind my teeth at night... but i literally am about to go insane with all of this. I am fed up with the constant tingling, aching, and itchiness of my face, jaw, and teeth.

why can't everything just be normal already... i mean it isn't that bad, but i still am not allowed to chew anything and i don't know. i just feel like i need to quit complaining to people about my surgery. i think that my friends assume i should just be back to normal by now, so i quit talking to them about surgery... i just don't think most understand everything you go through with this surgery.

here are pictures. i think the swelling is just here to stay for a long while :( some days i wake up worse than the day before.. and idk. just annoying since it is just barely there. why can't it just all go away!

on an entirely different note.....

so at my appointment with my surgeon 2? weeks ago, he mentioned that he thought that i should have more than 1 rubber band (in a box configuration) on each side. i had seen my orthodontist 2 days prior and he had placed my new bands like that. so my surgeon said he thought it may not be enough and thought i should have one in the front again just to keep my bite and teeth together i guess? so my surgeon said he would call my orthodontist and see if anything needed to change. so 2 weeks passed.... and we didn't hear anything. so yesterday i reminded my mom of this and we called my surgeon. the nurse said we need to just work this out with my orthodontist... so then we called the orthodontist... and they said they didn't have records of my surgeon asking... so then we called the surgeon's office back... and this goes on and on and on. now we are caught in the middle. and i guess we are trying to get an appt with my ortho on monday now... but i have an appt with my surgeon on tuesday and hopefully we can worth all of this out!! i just hope this doesn't affect my bite in the long run.. or how long i have my braces on.

last night i had a dream that i was chewing wheat thins and potato chips. and i knew i wasn't supposed to in my dream, but i did it anyway.... i woke up very scared that it was real! luckily, i havent chewed, even though i desperately want to... and i guess it shows with me dreaming about crunchy foods :P

take care all, things do get better, slowly, but they do! (or at least i keep telling myself this)
-Katie:)

Day 44 - Sensitivity

Hello to anyone still reading my thoughts :)

Today i was thinking about how my teeth are very sensitive now. I don't normally notice it since i'm NOT allowed to chew yet... but 2 weeks ago my surgeon gave me the "ok" to use my sonicare toothbrush again which i was super happy about.. but then i actually tried it and that was not a fun experience. my teeth just feel really really sensitive. the vibrating of that toothbrush was just way too much. so i just went back to using my baby toothbrush..! haha... I'm working my way back up to using my normal one though. that day will come eventually. also, if i run my tongue along the edges of the roof of my mouth (the areas near my molars) sometimes i get this really weird sensation and it just makes my teeth feel sensitive and yeah.

In regards to my progress with opening my mouth wider... i am now at 25 mm! i need to get to 35 mm.... but i have improved about 5 mm since i started the "exercises" with my stacked tongue depressors. hopefully i can continue to to improve it!

- Katie:)