The dates are set!

Hi everyone,

So I had my 2nd follow up consultation with the oral surgeon today.  He had my teeth molds/model with him.  Took a quick look at some prevoius pictures of me that I brought with me and my night guard and deemed that the night guard was definitely not the problem and this is clearly something that has happened over time.  The one thing new he noticed by using the model is that I had a pretty bad crossbite.

He said first that they would put something in my mouth to expand the top teeth. I'm assuming an expander is what he was talking about (I just looked at pictures of these and yikes they do not look comfortable at all!). He said they would do something with my lower jaw surgically to fix the crossbite completely but he was a little unclear. I know he said it would require double jaw surgery to fix so obviously the lower jaw would need to be moved around.  I'll be totally honest I was more in shock of him saying the words double jaw surgery that I kind of lost track of what he was saying. This doesnt sound right to me but from what I remember he said the upper jaw surgery would occur and then he would perform the lower jaw surgery which would be a slight advancement of the jaw to have the teeth slide into place. To me I feel like my lower jaw is already protruding enough as it is.  I'm always trying to tuck my lower teeth back to try to slide my teeth into place. Maybe I misunderstood though and thats what he meant was to pull the lower teeth back I dunno.  Either way its double jaw surgery and they said it will be approximately 6 months following the wisdom teeth removal which are already scheduled for removal on January 4th.

Insurance is covering a good chunk of the widsom teeth which is solid, $300 out of my pocket to cover for them so not too bad.  Haven't heard anything as far as pricing for the surgery just yet, they said I'll hear more as we get closer but that the majority of these are covered under the insurance.  They just have to send everything (all the models, xrays, pictures, notes etc.) over within a 6 month time frame of the surgery to the insurance company and they review it.  The lady up front said this is definitely not cosmetic so you'll be fine.  Great news, in fact probably the best news out of all of this.

Wow and I went all this time without even saying that I got the go ahead to schedule the braces.  December 1st, 2012 will begin my 18 months of brace face. So I'm excited to get the process started in just two weeks and glad that the wisdom teeth removal is next year since I'm almost out of sick time as it is for this year. Thats all I can think of for now.

Heres a few pics...

Just wanted to add a few pics. 3 day weekend coming up and then my second appointment with the surgeon is on Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll have some more direction after that and I'll be able to provide some more information as to what the next step is.  I'll post then. That's all for now!

Seriously?

Ok just got back from my 'first' consultation with the oral surgeon today.  I'm pretty frustrated for a couple reasons.  Number one being that he really didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or find out from talking with the orthodontist.  He looked in my mouth a few times, wrote a few things down and that was about it.  He said if I were to get surgery it would be upper jaw surgery and he said that my face wasn't totally aligned right and they might make an adjustment there as well.  Apparently my jaw is slightly to the left of where it should be.  They upper jaw surgery would entail removing some bone just about the teeth and then advancing the upper jaw forward slightly.

I couldn't really see but it looked like he had a lot of the information from the orthodontist already, but apparently not enough.  He said he needed to have all of the models and molding of the teeth that made.  One of the other things I'm frustrated at is actually at myself for not bringing the night guard.  I brought it to my dentist appointment and to the orthodontist and they didn't need it at either place for any reason but he wants to know if perhaps the night guard is actually causing the problem in the first place.  He asked me to bring that and older pictures of myself to build a timeline so that he could see when it started to happen and if the night guard is the problem since I just started wearing it 3-4 years ago.

I asked about the wisdom teeth then and if I could schedule that at least and he said to wait because right now those are the only teeth that are touching for me.  I told him about the jaw pain after sleeping and how it seems to be getting worse and he didn't really respond.  So he ended with "This is just the beginning this meeting right here."  He went on to say he'd see me in a month after reviewing everything and speaking with the orthodontist.  Then he asked me if I scheduled the appointment for the braces and I said no they told me to wait until I saw you to get the go ahead and I've been waiting over a month for just this meeting. Then he said to hold off on scheduling anything with them and that he would get me in again within 2 weeks to get things moving.

So I guess I'm just disappointed at the lack of new information.  Ever since I got the night guard it never really felt right in my mouth but I just assumed that's how it was supposed to be, awkward.  I'm about to start doing some searches to see if anyone else has had any similar problems.  I guess I'll be posting again on or before November 15th when my 'second' consultation is with the oral surgeon and hopefully I'll get alll of the next steps, pricing, insurance coverage or not etc. Oh one last nice thing was my insurance said I'd have to pay a $25 copay and they didn't ask me to pay anything so I don't know if that will happen next time or not but at least that worked out.

Thanks for reading,

Tom