These braces will come off!

I saw my orthodontist today. He wanted to take the braces off "while the going's good", he said! Yes indeed, that is how good my bite is! But no, said my vanity, this 'off' midline at the top needs moving over.

It will take 3 months and involve wearing a funny spring thing instead of a rubber band, which can't be removed. So we decided to wait 6 weeks so I can work on my jaw exercises without any restriction. On November 12 I will have it on, which means the braces will come off mid Feb! Yay! Hopefully my horribly sensitive upper teeth will have calmed down by then.

Also, he said it might not work and the teeth might not move. But I am convinced they will.

I'm a bit sad the braces will have to stay on for the summer/festive season and I will have to go through all those barbeques and general social things with the food-in-braces problem. But it will be worth it in the long run. It will mean I will be in braces for 18 months total - not bad.

My noisy joint

Ah, maybe I was too optimistic. The bones of my jaw joint still rub/scrape when I chew or talk or do my exercises. It is quite horrible know ing your bones are scraping together when they shouldn't be. And how do I know.... of course it's right by my ear so I can hear it!

If my disc was in its correct place, it would prevent the rubbing.

And I can only move my lower jaw forward about 1mm - seriously pathetic - which is apparently a classic 'disc is in the way' problem (because the disc displaces forwards and prevents that forwards sliding movement).

Still, my bite is great. I see the surgeon (a back up one, my one is on holiday) again in a week so I guess I will get the verdict then.

I keep swallowing the rubber band I'm wearing on my braces at dinner time!

My lovely centred bite

Great news, since the joint was flushed on Friday my bite has stayed centred right where it should be, all teeth fitting together like nature's jigsaw puzzle. And to touch the joint has lost its strange bump. These are excellent signs that the procedure has been a success.

It's still pretty sore though and my jaw mobility remains pathetic. I remain dedicated to exercising it.

The jaw flushing

I had the arthrocentesis procedure yesterday to shift my left jaw disc back into place. I'm not sure it's worked.

They gave me iv sedation but I do remember at least part of it (not the full 45 min it took though). I specifically remember the surgeon grabbing my upper and lower incisors and pulling my mouth really wide open, and it hurt a lot. I cried. I remember everything at the end and when I came out.

The surgeon said the disc was definitely in the right place when he finished. But now my range of motion is just what it was before and the joint still hurts. I am meant to launch back into my jaw exercises now.

But my bite does seem to be centred, and not just when I lie down. So that is a very good sign - maybe the joint is still unhappy from being so manipulated. I have been given painkillers so I guess some pain is expected.

So, outcome is still pending.

10 week photos

Hey, my face has got even skinnier! And saggier!

It'll be good to get those top teeth moved to the centre. I shudder to think what the rubber band configuration for it will look like! I see the ortho next Tuesday.

But tomorrow I have my jaw-flush procedure. I am really looking forward to a normal healthy jaw joint again. 10 weeks of pain from the damn thing. And to be able to open my mouth more.... mmmmmm, lovely. Wish me luck.

My top teeth are pretty sensitive still, and some of them sore to touch. I couldn't bear to have my braces removed yet, even if it was option. I would need some local anaesthetic! And I still have the patch of numbness on my top right lip, near the centre. It itches at times.

Other than that, all is good. I am definitely happy with the cosmetic changes. Roll on happy chewing days.

To Darnsie

Hi Darnsie, I saw that you are following my blog and read about your jaw problems. But you have no blog that I could see?

I can see why you are following my blog because our cases are quite similar!

I always blow my nose too, and the bad news is that I still do after surgery. My surgeon opened my nasal passages somehow - by removing some bits of bone - and I wondered if that might help but there is definitely no improvement in the nose blowing.

Good luck for your surgery. When is it? Let me know if you do a blog.

Best wishes,
Andrea

A procedure to help with my jaw pain

I had a 10 week post op visit today. Basically the surgeon said he'd expected my jaw pain to be gone and my mouth opening to be quite big by now. My pain is as bad as ever and the opening is barely 2 fingers. So this Friday he will perform 'arthrocentesis' (also known as lavage) on my sore joint. This is because my displaced disc has become jammed, he said. Sometimes it gets suction-cupped onto something and it needs to have the suction broken.

He said the jaw exercises I've been doing so diligently are probably just aggravating it (it feels that way, too).

I nearly cried when I heard this but now I feel okay, and hopeful it will relieve my pain at nights, which sometimes feels like it couldn't be much worse to have a knife stabbed in there. He said it always works, but it's not always permanent. I am determined it will be!

So I will have it done in his office under IV sedation (which will be a new experience for me). He'll inject local anaesthetic then flush out the joint with saline via a needle (no cuts to my skin). He'll also manipulate the joint to try to get everything in place and inject steroid in there to knock back the inflammation. It's very non-invasive (just fluids squirted around, really) and there are no side effects apart from possibly a funny eye that evening.

The relief should be instant. I NEED that. Currently I have to sleep on my back all the time because it's so painful for my joint when I on my side, but this nearly kills my back. I consulted a physiotherapist today who is certain I have a 'tilted' pelvis, which I can get away with when I sleep on my side. But tilted pelvises complain bitterly when slept on from behind. Presumably it kind of makes the pelvis go straight when it's not really. I will be getting some help for this.

Also my bite will align itself nicely (which it does now at night anyway).

Another bit of wisdom the phsyio told me: the body's metabolism, which usually washes away swelling at a certain rate, is at its slowest at about 2-3am. This leaves things like injured joints more swollen and therefore sore. And tissues around cut bones etc too, I guess, for those fresh out of surgery who wake up at night.

I note that I have some new followers. Exciting! Hello out there!

Painful jaw joint

Oooh last night was a bad one. I have a cold and maybe that interacted with it, but I was practically writhing with pain in my left jaw joint many times. I kept going back to sleep and then surfacing again and again. It felt like someone had bashed my jaw joint with a hammer. Naturally I felt awful today.

Tonight I will take anti-inflammatories. Maybe I will take them solidly for a couple of days.

A new 'bump' had appeared below my jaw joint yesterday. It feels a bit jelly-like. There is a much smaller version below my right jaw joint. I think it's a muscle. I suspect I've been forcing my mouth open too hard during my jaw exercises.

8 weeks post-op photos and update

I feel good now. That said, I am exhausted tonight, but that's just having a busy life! Lots of my top teeth are super sensitive as the nerves come back. My top gums are totally numb still. My palate has a streak of fairly raw sensitivity on either side of it. My mouth opening is probably 2cm or so. I do my jaw exercises about 5 times a day. The last remaining 'outer' numb bit is the middle of my top left lip but the feeling is coming back. You can see that lip is still not quite closing the same as the right hand side. The surgeon said to massage it to break up any scar tissue. I remember sometimes.

My left jaw joint, with the slipped disc, still hurts, unfortunately. The pain got worse when the tightish bands came off after the last ortho visit a week ago. Just bad at night. I sleep on my back most of the time and it still hurts a bit, and hurts a lot when I sleep on my side (but I have to do that a little bit or I have a very bad lower back in the morning). Also it used to go into a nicely centred, aligned position during the night but it doesn't do that at the moment (although it gets a bit closer to the centre).

It is interesting for me to compare these to photos taken at 6 weeks. I can see that I have become even less swollen. I wonder if I have further to go, or is this it?

Yesterday I saw someone I hadn't seen in ages (and who I never knew very well) and he didn't recognise me and when I said who I was he looked at me strangely. "Have you changed your hair or something?" he asked. I just said no, I've got braces now.

I think the surgery has improved the look of my face. Almost no one has said that though, just a couple of people, compared to about 20 who have said I look different. Strange. I wonder if they are really thinking I look WORSE?

Here are some photos of the 'off to the sidedness'. It deviates more as my mouth opens wider. Unfortunately I can't see any change here since my 5 week photos.

In general I just live in hope that the joint will heal, the pain will go away, the bite will centre itself.

My orthodontist's last band arrangement, seen above, worked FAST, in less than 24 hours. Cusps all fit together nicely now (when I move my jaw over to its centred position).