Day 440 - Changes

So, I realized I needed to post before things got super busy. I am officially moved into college and am loving it here. Classes start Monday so I'm about to be very busy!

I ended up getting my MRI and CT scan done. They showed arthritic changes in the joints and that both of my discs in the joint are likely out of place and enlarged from the stress etc. I saw a more specialized joint doctor. He suggested me as a possible candidate for a joint surgery to put my discs back in place. I don't want any surgery at this moment, so I decided not to have it now. But the surgeon was very helpful in explaining more about my jaw to us which was great. He suggested me to apply heat to my jaw joints and slowly open and close my jaw as well as to continue eating soft foods.

The pain has been more manageable in the last few weeks though which is great. I will just hope that the stress of being at a university doesn't make things worse. I'm trying for positive thoughts though! 

Take care all!

- Katie :)

Day 327 - Updates (Another Before/After too)

So, I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently. I've honestly just been putting off a post because things have been hard lately and I've been hoping they get better so I could write a happier post. But they haven't.

My jaw pain has gotten worse again. There isn't a day where I don't have a throbbing headache or an aching joint. I have tried to wear a special retainer that helps put my jaw in a relaxed place at night. This has helped substantially, but it has also revealed that I still have an open bite, which is really hard to accept. My teeth mostly touch in the back again which just makes me want to cry. My jaw doctor says he will help by placing composite on certain teeth to fill in my bite. But my front teeth don't touch in any way :( I don't think anyone would notice by looking at me, but it is just really hard to accept that I went through all of this and still have pain and my bite is far from normal. I think I can learn to accept my open bite, but all of this pain I'm having is worse than it was before surgery. I've just been really down about it the last few months. I wish all 3 of my doctors would have communicated better. Sigh.

These pictures were taken about a month ago. Since then my bite has opened up a bit more. I don't really want to show a picture emphasizing that because it just makes me sad.

Anyway, things aren't too horrible overall. I promise! Just not the best. I have faith it'll get better. Just hoping the pain is fixable, that's all. Take care all :) Thoughts are with any of you in recovery.

-Katie:)

Day 260 - Somewhat Closer!

So I have had 2 orthodontist appointments since the original sad day. They have tried getting my front-ish teeth to have contact after my bite unexpectedly opening up. My orthodontist is please with how all of my teeth finally touch EXCEPT for my top 2 and bottom 2 in the center. but he commented that is as good as it is gonna get with the shaping of my teeth. anyway! he said i am ready to get my braces off!!!

*gets excited*
ready for the excitement to die?

so i walk up to schedule my appointment and the receptionist said they don't have any appointments until MARCH 31st. WHAT??? how is that :( 5 weeks is terrible. so that crushed my happiness.

but… the receptionist said if anyone cancels i'll be first on the list to get in. (so people please cancel your appointments!!!)

so i guess I'm a step closer to getting them off. just don't know what to think… trying to keep my patience!

yay for my front part of my bite for mostly touching now!!

so… the wait for a call from the orthodontist commences… sigh. hope all is well out there! i guess we all have our own issues to deal with and mine aren't too bad, just involve time… which sucks. but oh well. fingers crossed that next time i post i have good news:)

-Katie:)

Day 240 - Disappointment.

So today I had my appointment to get my braces off, but my orthodontist decided that my bite had reopened a bit in the front and that he wouldn't take them off today :( needless to say I began crying in his office. embarrassing right? but i couldn't help it. I've had these things on for 3 years and I just want to keep moving forward in my treatment. I have had so much pain lately in my jaw and so I just wanted my braces off so I can begin treatment to stabilize the pain.

I guess I just got so excited for today to finally get them off and just was devastated that it didn't happen :( I head back to my orthodontist in a week and they'll check on how my mouth is and we'll go from there.

After I got the devastating news they adjusted my braces. I only have a wire on my top 4 front teeth and my bottom 4 front teeth. then i wear my finishing elastics as i showed in a previous post that lace my whole mouth together to try to close the front of my bite. then they took a panoramic X-ray of my mouth and he said he is going to look at my bones and see if more degeneration occurred and yeah.

those were taken before i got the bad news…..

on the plus side we had a snow day today and so i didn't have to go to school… more time to myself to be sad? :(

at least the snow is pretty!

sigh. I just want it to end :( I guess i'll update when i know more…. until then I'm going to go sulk about my braces still being on. next time i won't get my hopes up. disappointment sucks. take care all

-Katie :(

Day 173. Holy Buckets.

GUYS! hi :) :)

i apologize for not posting anything recently, but hey that must be a good thing! i have been thinking about my jaw surgery less and less as the days go by. luckily. overall i have been feeling great! i did have 2 sinus infections within a month, and let me tell you…. those made the plates and the area behind my cheeks hurt a TON from the infected sinuses. I also experience tiny flare ups of swelling on those days. so i hope you guys don't get sinus infections in the first few months after surgery!

I am slowly but surely approaching the 6-month mark, which is december 10th. and wow does it feel great to be so far from surgery :) life is pretty much normal!

OH. guess what I ate yesterday for the first time since surgery???

raw carrots. the ultimate hard food. hahahah, and it didn't even really hurt :) yay!

the most negative thing that i experience after surgery remains my jaw clicking. I didn't experience and clicking prior to surgery. but afterwards… my left side clicks with almost every chew. i have discovered that if i chew a certain way sometimes it subsides though, so there is hope!

I also still grind my teeth excessively at night… and since i have braces still, i don't have a special retainer/guard to protect my teeth at night. so maybe, once my braces are off and i get my retainer and my mouth guard, that will take care of the issues from grinding my teeth. I feel like the grinding contributes to my jaw clicking as well as the headaches and other jaw aches that i experience when i wake up.

just as before surgery, some days are better than others. I'm not completely pain free. definitely still get headaches occasionally, and my jaw still just aches, but I'm just staying hopeful that it'll get better some day :) if I'm not hopeful… then ill just be too sad.

i still have complete numbness in the upper gums of my mouth. everything else i can at least feel if i touch. i have these weird sensations around my lips, like if i pinch the skin on the left side of my chin, i feel it in my upper left teeth. don't know why… but i do. and it is annoying. similarly, if i poke or mess with the left side of my nose, i feel it in my front left upper tooth. sooo weird. maybe it was just that the nerves healed a bit off? idk. i guess i can live with it… just an extremely odd feeling.

overall though, things are awesome :) even with the things that annoy me… i would have surgery over again. i would make the same choice. nothing will ever take away from the fact that my teeth actually TOUCH. (this is a completely magical feeling that i didn't really experience before surgery).

hmm let's see… oh, as for how i feel about my appearance, some days i feel like my face is too round or puffy, but i just love my profile, and so it is all good. the other day i was buying some new clothes, and i was in a dressing room that had a bunch of mirrors, and out of the corner of my eye i saw that the side mirror showed my profile. and it shocked me how different i looked from before. it was a great realization :)

OH! I saw my dentist and jaw doctor for the first time since surgery 2 weeks ago. He was shocked at how great my surgery turned out. He even brought out the old model he had of my teeth and our mouths just dropped at how bad it was before i had braces and surgery. oh how my teeth have changed in the last 4 years! AND somehow i made it through recovery with ZERO cavities! i definitely way not expecting that. so Go Me i guess! haha.

I am still on track to get my braces off at the end of january… which seems soooooo sooooo far away…. but i guess i trust that my orthodontist will use this time to get my teeth perfect. and i guess having pretty awesome teeth will be 100% worth the wait.

for anyone still in the earlier stages of this process… i assure you, it. is. worth. it.! hang in there :) we have been in similar situations, but it all works out :) worrying doesn't do much good. but i also assure you that i worried too….. i am a huge worrier… but it all worked out. but boy am i glad that i am through the hard part… i almost get to celebrate being done! until that point though, ill just try to forget that I've had braces on for almost 3 years, i guess. ahha

and i guess i can't leave this post without adding a few random photos!

i hope everything is going well with all of you guys. i am so incredibly grateful for the blogging community for helping through this whole ordeal. so a big thank you :) please talk to me if anything is needed. anyway, until next time!

-Katie:)

Day 84 - TWELVE WEEKS (pictures upon pictures)

So since im not feeling a ton better yet (with my head cold symptoms), I am pretty positive that i have a sinus infection. whoopee :\ but oh well. ill head to the doctor sometime next week and hopefully get some medicine. just wanted to do some sort of update since i have free time tonight! i've been crazy busy with school and golf and show choir recently, missing school for tournaments and everything else just makes my life insanely busy! but oh well, i love everything, so i deal with only getting 5-6 hours of sleep and such. but it does make me appreciate my weekends :)

love not having my over bite!!!! :):):)

here are some candids from this weekend. wow! i don't have to worry about my profile anymore, woohoo :)

as far as jaw related things go, everything is pretty good. I am now chewing more and more. this monday is my 12 week mark which is when my surgeon said i can try to eat a steak.. yay! it still feels quite weird to chew though... so im hoping it just starts to feel more and more normal as the weeks go on. my biggest complaint right now is my sensitivity. i can't even use my sonicare toothbrush because it hurts so badly :( the sensitivity still feels like when you have a cold popsicle and it touches some teeth that are super sensitive to it and you experience almost some sort of pain. im not even sure how to describe it. but it is annoying and such. i also feel it when i eat hard food. so most times i just try to eat the softest food as possible...

BUT last night i tried to eat some steak because my family was having it and i was just starved. i cut it up into super duper tiny pieces and tried my best to chew. I could kinda mush it but it gave me a headache to fully bite down on the steak. so i just went and mixed it with baked beans and swallowed it whole. I give up on chewing things like that super easily.... just easier to cut it up extremely tiny and swallow whole.

but let's see... what else to update. oh i guess i could talk about numbness. the only things still completely numb are my upper gums. everything else i can at least tell that im touching it.
NUMBNESS:

90% feeling

• chin
• bottom lip
• bottom gums

60% feeling (i can feel it completely but there is tingling too)

• nose
• edge of cheeks (more towards my ears)
• left cheek inside of mouth

30% feeling (i can tell something is touching it.... but cant exactly "feel" it, and tons of tingling)

• upper lip
• roof of mouth
• inside left cheek (keep biting it accidentally when i eat..)
• the area of my cheeks right next to my nose (where the screws and plates on my upper jaw are)

0% feeling

• upper gums (i can't even tell when i am brushing them...)

still have sensitivity in my mouth, but i think it may be SLOWLY improving yay! but i still cant use my sonicare toothbrush... which sucks. it is really hard for me to get the "clean mouth" feeling. but oh well.

here is my bite. have an ortho appt wednesday and im FINALLY going to ask how much longer i have my braces on for!! hopefully i get them off soon....... *crosses fingers*

hmm, i think my swelling is almost completely gone! some days i wake up and look a tiny bit puffier than others... but i think im the only one that can notice it.

bored before school one morning about a week ago...

also, i still have my left jaw joint popping sometimes, but only after long periods of me not doing anything with my jaw and then i go to eat something hard. so maybe it is just getting used to everything again? hope so :( don't want to be stuck with that forever. at least i don't have pain when it pops though.

after days where i chew a lot, my jaw does ache. there are a couple different types of pain i still experience... one being just tiredness in the joints and just overall from over-chewing or talking. but then sometimes i have pain in my lower jaw where the plates are or my upper jaw where the plates are still. which probably shouldn't be happening but i don't know what to do about it.

my lips are less stiff!!! i still can't do "fish" lips... but i can at least make a "kissy-face"...

overall i am still so happy that i went ahead with the surgery :) even though it was a rough recovery the first month... i survived the worst of it and can now just move past all of this. i feel pretty good about my face even though i think i look different sometimes... but i guess everyone goes through that with this surgery. our face is just so integral to who we are... just scary to change it and still try to see yourself. but hey, having all of my teeth touch is SOOO worth it :)

my lips don't touch naturally still... but they are SOOOO close. so i can live with that. 

anyway, sorry for the loads and loads of pictures.... i just didn't really want to sort through a ton and figure out which were best to post, so i just put them all in! I hope all is well with you guys going through something similar... :) now to start another insanely busy week....

-Katie:)

Day 75 - I don't recommend having a cold soon after jaw surgery....

So in the middle of the night i woke up because i couldn't breathe, brought me back to the days right after surgery when my nose was all clogged with dried blood and such.... not fun! and then this morning i realized that i just have a full on cold. my voice is barely audible due to my croup cough and sore throat and my nose is all stuffy and it kinda hurts my face still to blow it. and worst of all i have SO much pressure in my sinuses. on either side of my nose (where i still have partial numbness) it aches so badly and i just feel like my head might explode. it is like a cold on steroids. gah...... just when i was feeling normal i have to go and get sick...!

and don't even get me started on sneezing.... so i have been trying to sneeze out of my mouth more after surgery, but when you have a croup cough that is not the way to go, but it hurts my nose a lot if i attempt to sneeze normally. and ugh

sorry for this rant....

hope things are better for all of you :)
-Katie:)

Day 74 - Appt with Surgeon

I had an appointment the other day with my surgeon! It went well. He said everything looks great, that he thinks my swelling will still get noticeable better for another month. He also said to continue eating soft foods and in 2+ weeks i can try things like steak and other harder foods. yay! hope i am able to chew harder things as fast as possible. chewing still feels super weird. because i feel as if i don't have the strength there to bite down all the way.

i have been starting to have more aches in my face in general and i dont know why :( maybe just the continued chewing? or the extra singing and talking with being back at school? or just the stress of everything? im not sure... but it isn't super pleasant.

but anyway, here is a random assortment of pictures from the last several days. i still feel weird looking in the mirror, i guess since i see something slightly different than what i was used to every other day of my life before surgery. but i don't think it is a negative thought, just different is all. i just wish i could see myself how other people at school see me, if they think i look weird or different, cause i bet their perspective is way different than my own.

i chewed my first piece of pizza tonight!! and let me tell you... pizza is extremely amazingly delicious. i guess im gonna go to sleep because i have 5+ hours of show choir choreography tomorrow. hope everything is alright with anyone still reading :) i really appreciate anyone who has made a blog or commented on mine, you guys are simply the best :)
-Katie:)

Day 63 - NINE WEEKS. i did it. :)

Guys, i made it to 9 weeks. and things are pretty darn great :) i am doing really wonderful overall and could even describe things as "normal". if you asked me 1-2 weeks out if i thought that was possible i would have said never. but here we are!

So tomorrow i go back to school, hence i won't be writing in this as much. I successfully wrote in this blog every day for the first 9 weeks, and i'd say this is a good time to make it updated less often. which is a good thing! that means i must be doing well :)

swelling- i feel like by the end of the day my swelling worsens a tiny bit from all the talking and chewing that i do. but overall i think it is mostly gone.. still some though. i saw one of my friend's mom the first time since surgery and she commented that she thought i was swollen, but my friend thought it was mostly gone, probably since she has seen me several times since surgery when my swelling is much worse. i guess it all has to do with perspective. but i look very normal, so i am okay with it right now, not too frustrated anymore :)

energy-normal! woo. the only this is that im way out of shape now, i feel pathetic. haha, i mean not that i was "in shape" beforehand... but i even felt kinda tired from walking in golf. oops! normally i work out in the summer.. but it just wasn't gonna happen this year. but oh well.

chewing- i know i have talked quite a bit about this in the last few posts seeing as this is the main thing going on right now in my recovery! i still LOVE food immensely, and things are getting easier and easier to eat, which i am so grateful for. the clicking is still there but not always so we will see how that turns out... so before surgery i almost always had a piece of gum in my mouth, it just felt better to be chewing gum than to have my mouth awkwardly half-closed. and i LOVE chewing gum. but obviously that still isn't an option :( so in preparation for school, i went and bought several containers of tic-tacs, those will have to suffice until gum is an option!

numbness- okay, so this is getting harder and harder to describe... so bear with me. ill place my numbness into categories. the only parts that are completely numb are my upper gums, and the incision areas. everything else i don't count as completely numb because i can tell when i am touching it.

stiffness- this has been kinda annoying throughout recovery and one of my biggest complaints the last few weeks. i mean i can smile fairly easily and talk and make normal facial expressions, but my face just feels stiff and weird! probably partly from the partial numbness still. i assume this will get better

normalcy?- i now quite often will forget that i had jaw surgery during the day until i either have a random ache, or i get hungry and realize that there are only so many things that i can eat. but hey, not a bad thing at all :) it is really nice for surgery to not be consuming my life anymore. it is weird when people ask me how my summer was and i have to make that split decision as to whether i tell them i had jaw surgery etc. i am getting better at explaining it, but it still takes a big of time and idk! i haven't decided who all needs to know about it.

pain- any "pain" is pretty much gone, i have some aches for some parts of the day, but nothing horrible, just kinda uncomfortable. but the times where i feel great is when the pain and discomfort is gone and i forget about surgery.

sensitivity- it still kinda hurts to brush with my sonicare, so i have just been using my regular and/or baby toothbrushes still.

nose- i have had really really bad allergies lately from golf and so i end up sneezing a ton. not good by any means, but not the end of the world. sometimes blowing my nose hurts really bad so i have been trying to be careful with that.

bite opening- i am still working on opening my mouth wider, a hard process that leaves my jaw achy sometimes, but im slowly improving! almost to 30mm need at least 35.

pictures!

hope all is well with you guys. thank you to anyone who has read my blog or commented, the support has really helped more than anyone can imagine. i hope that this helps someone, but if not, it has been amazing to put all of my thoughts into one place during recovery. on those days where it seems like it wont get better, i can always look back and see how far ive come. which is so great :) take care, until next time.
-Katie:)