Surgery Date!!!

Good News!  I finally got a surgery date.  3/18th!  Like all things though there is a story behind it...
I had to harass them for like 3 days after my surgeon and orthodontist met.  I kept calling everyday until finally they were like okay we'll have someone call you back today and they lived up to that promise.  Initially they said I could have it on 2/25 but they said they have to check and make sure the hospital could accommodate that date as well.  Unfortunately they couldn't get me in on 2/25 but they were able to get me a date for 3/18th.  Honestly at this point I'm not even worried about that I'm just excited to have a date finally set in stone.

I have to go back in for more models on 2/28th and I have to get my surgical hooks on the Thursday before the surgery which is 3/14th.  So those are the days I have to look forward to now.  As far as my teeth go, I just got some new wires in just after the new year on 1/4th.  They actually hurt quite a bit but it felt good to get them cut nice and short since the other ones were cutting me up pretty badly.  The wire they put in is still considered a "post surgery" wire so I still have no idea whats going on with that.  When I was there the lady literally asked me if I still felt numbness and I asked from what and she said your surgery and I was like I didnt have it yet!  So she had to go ask my ortho what the hell was going on but they didn't tell me why I was on the wire I was.  I didn't bother asking I'm just gonna let them do their thing.

So for all of those out there who find this particular post just know that from most of other blogs and articles I've read the surgery date is usually approximately 1.5-2 months after the day it is scheduled.  That's pretty much what 2/25-3/18 is for me so that's about right.  That's why I wasn't really too disappointed when they moved it to the later date. The other timeline I've read is you get your braces off 6-8 months after the surgery given that everything goes as planned so we'll have to see if that's accurate as well.  6-8 months from 3/18th is 9/18-11/18.  My birthday is 10/7 so that would be the best birthday gift ever if I could get them off then!

I'll post after the next meeting!  Enjoy the pics!

12/1/12 before wisdom teeth haha what a gap!

1/17/12 haha

All I wanted for Christmas is a sugery date!

Hey guys,

So I heard back from insurance and they said that I was approved for the surgery which is great.  80% will be covered.  I spoke to the girl at the surgeon's office yesterday and today.  Yesterday she said she also got the confirmation that my surgery was approved, but she had to speak to my surgeon to see if I was all ready to go.  Apparently he was out on vacation for a week or two and was just getting caught up on things.  She never called back and so I called again today to see what was up.  She said that she set up a lunch for my surgeon and my orthodontist in order to discuss my surgery.  It's a bit disappointing knowing that I probably won't get a date now until at least February some time I would think.  I don't know how far in advance it needs to be scheduled.  I have an ortho appointment before that appointment on 1/2nd so I guess I'll find out more then.  So the waiting game continues.

Oh I also asked if there was additional hosptial costs and she said yes but that I should be okay since my insurance was covering it all.  I don't know what that means really if they cover all hosptial costs or just the 80% or how it all works.  I'm sure I'll find out more about that as I get closer to the actual surgery.  Not much has changed with my teeth.  I have noticed a bit of crowding on my bottom teeth, I'll be sure to point that out to the ortho next time.  I'll try to update this later with pictures.

Surgery Cost

So I just got a letter today from the surgeon's office saying the total cost was only going to be $6450!  With my insurance covering (hopefully) 80% of that I'm only going to owe like 1200 or so.  That is like nothing compared to what I was expecting.  I'm hoping this includes everything like all hospital costs and all.  It just says on the letter that they have sent a copy of this to the insurance company too.  I'm pretty confident that includes everything though so all I can say is wow.  They give you an extra 5% off if you pay it all in full before the surgery so I'll probably take advantage of that as well.  I might only wind up owing 900 or so which is awesome.  I'm expecting to hear from the surgeon's office next week in order to plan a date so I'll post again soon!

Really quick update

Just wanted to update really quick about my status.  I called the surgeon's office last Thursday to check to see if I had anything due, and the lady said that she had literally just sent in the paperwork to my insurance company right before I called.  I have Aetna as my insurance company and she said that they usually respond pretty quickly so that I should be hearing from them in probably a week or so.  With the holiday I'm guessing I probably won't hear until next week sometime and I should be able to schedule a date then.  I'm thinking most dates are a month and half out from the scheduling point so I guess we are looking at mid January, early Feb.  Hopefully 6-7 months later I can get the braces off in the summer.  Ill post again once I hear back from them. Oh I just noticed im 12 days away from having braces for a whole year.  Seems like yesterday I was just posting on here about finding out I was going to have to get them.  Time sure does fly by.

Surgery Ready!

Hey gang!

Had my appointment today with the surgeon and received pretty much nothing but good news.  He had the models and the x-rays with him during the appointment.  He kept drawing little lines on the models and checking the symmetry of my face and my smile.  Eventually he shook my hand and concluded with "well you did a fantastic job of following any instructions you're orthodontist has given you and you are ready to go.  From here we will start the booking process."  I'm pretty sure I did a little dance internally when he said that.  He said he had one final adjustment he would tell my ortho about before monday for my next ortho appointment, but that the booking process takes long enough where it won't matter.

So aside from being ready, he also said he will only be doing one jaw, my lower jaw.  He said he is going to turn it so that the midline is aligned and there will be no adjustment to my chin or anything like that.  He didn't give me like exact measurements or even really tell me what he was going to do to my bottom jaw to fix the open bite though.  I guess I'm to blame for not asking I just don't understand how he's gonna fix it with just adjusting my lower jaw.  The only thing I can think of his maybe turning the lower jaw up and under my top jawBut I trust this dude and I think he knows what hes doing.  The good news about this though is two things, one the cost of the total surgery is probably almost cut in half with only one jaw having to get done, and two is that I'm hoping the recovery time will be quicker.

Alright I just spent like an hour researching how the hell he was going to do this and I found a terrific link which I think explains it really really well.  Lower Jaw Surgery 1 and Lower Jaw Surgery 2
I think either of those would be an option but these pictures illustrate he could pretty much do either and still accomplish the same goal:

Its basically a good visual to show no matter which way he goes about it, he can rotate the jaw in all directions to get the teeth to interlock correctly.  I think he will be turning my jaw so the midline is correct and then I believe the jaw will just be rotated clockwise (if your looking at these pictures above) and maybe just a small bit backwards.  These are really good visuals though I feel like and its comforting to know that he can fix everything with just the one jaw.  Pretty cool!

Anyway so after the meeting the assistant was talking with my surgeon in front of me as he was giving her the next steps and he told her we were ready to do the booking process.  She asked when he thought we should have the surgery and he looked at me and I said as soon as possible.  She asked him "before Christmas?" And he was just like "Um we'll have to see whats available, and he asked me if it was urgent."  I was honest and said its not like I absolutely need it, I'm not in pain or anything but preferably I'ld like to have it as soon as possible.  She said oh well we'll have to check to see what dates we have available once we hear back from insurance.  So once that conversation takes place, hopefully in the next few weeks, I'll be able to book a time.  The fact that she said "before Christmas?"  already tells me that they have time slots available so there is a sliver of hope of getting this taken care of in 2012.  If not I'm thinking early next year as I've been saying all along. 

I'll make another post after I visit from my orthodontist on Monday, and hopefully the next post after that will be a Surgery Date post woooohoooo!  Happy Halloween everyone!

My topical Halloween Costume from Saturday

Impressions

Hey all,

Went in for my impressions today and got those all completed.  Not much a story behind that they just took new X-Rays and then we did the whole goopy impression business.  I was pretty much in and out but I did ask the people at the front desk about when they thought my surgery would be.  The one girl didn't have my chart in front of her but she said the obvious next step is the whole presentation on 10/31st and if I'm ready to go and all the insurance information is done then I'd be set to book a date.  She actually said that we would send in the insurance info at that time but I'm pretty sure they did that last time or at least I hope they did because that's what they told me.  I'm assuming since she didn't have my chart in front of her she didn't know for sure.

She asked me what my name was again and then said that both the surgeon and orthodondist met a week or so ago again to talk about me so that was good to hear I guess. I'm wondering if that was the same day I was there last when I ran into my ortho on the way out of the surgeon's office.  Anyhow the biggest and probably most disappointing news was when I said realistically when do you think I'll have it, say that everything is a go on 10/31st, what do you think? How long is the average time after that that the surgery takes place? She said she just booked one for someone else in December and even that was difficult so I said so what mid December or early next year?  She said most likely.  It already seemed like she knew it would be next year but she didn't want to tell me.  I initially told them the whole reason I'm asking was to find out when I should start talking to my HR department about my options and whether I'll be on FMLA or not.  I told her where I worked and she said I would be on FMLA without a doubt but I wouldn't talk to them until I got the date.  So kind of disappointing I guess.  I've been doing more reading and a lot of the websites were saying pretty much 6-8 weeks after the impressions the surgery would occur so I guess that's wrong in my case.  Seems like every time I read something new I get more wishful thinking.  I doubt I'll stop either haha.

As for the SureSmile wires.  They definitely hurt my teeth for longer than a typical tightening but after a few days it goes away.  In my case though the molars were the most sore and continued to be sore for the 2nd week too.  I'm pretty much all good now though they don't hurt at all and it feels good to bite down and feel most of the teeth interlock. Hopefully there won't be too much else they need to do from here and I'll get my date around the first week of November.

Not gonna post any pics today, but I did finally upgrade from my shitty Droid X to an iPhone 5!  I'm absolutely in love with everything about it, including the better camera so maybe the pics will look a bit better haha.  Who knows I might even post a video one time!

Meeting With Surgeon

Hey guys,

So I had a couple appointments today, one of them being with the surgeon which I'll get to in a minute.  I had my normal dentist appointment first.  I don't think I've had a more successful one honestly.  They were pretty excited to hear I'm getting so close to the surgery now and just to think that by my next appointment with them, I should be only a few months away from having the braces removed.  One of the things I told them was how the grinding has almost completely stopped now since I've had the braces on.  It's also eliminated any slippage like when I'm chewing so they were glad to hear that and could really see that there hasn't been any additional damage.

On to the good stuff!  So I met with my surgeon today, he was about as glad to see me as I was him so that was cool.  He was very impressed at how far along my teeth have come.  Particularly the widening of the top jaw and narrowing of the bottom jaw, which is what my ortho has constantly been referring to and focusing on the last like 3 months or so.  Its good to hear they are on the same page.  He basically said at this point that the teeth are just about where he wants them which definitely put a smile on my face.  He took a close look at my alignment again and he said any crossbite that I had was almost gone, as much as possible without the surgery that is.  He was concerned about the alignment though and he said that he's actually considering maybe just doing the lower jaw now because according to him, my top jaw is in the correct position but the bottom jaw is slightly to my left off center.  I asked him well what about the open bite and he said he'd be able to fix that by just doing the lower jaw too and what he would do is move the jaw to my right and center it.  I dunno know how exactly he would fix the open bite by just doing the lower jaw, if any of you have any info on that let me know.  I need to do some research on it.  The other thing he asked me was if my ortho had asked me about doing something to the roof of my mouth to widen the jaw even more or wear some type of appliance.  I wasn't exactly sure but I know he told me about it before so I just said yeah and he said he wasn't sure if he'd have to do that or not.  Anyway he said there is the possibility of doing both jaws but he said he's not sure yet. He said the next step is to have impressions done and then he's going to do the surgery on those models and have a presentation for me at the following appointment.  He said from there we will book a time slot and then its on!  The other big thing was that they sent in the information to the insurance company today to get everything approved so I think that's a major step and a major sign we are getting close!

So I have a bunch of dates to look forward to now.  I've never been so pumped for fall cause there is so much to look forward too, not just braces and jaw surgery related but a lot of the good stuff is taking place finally.  Oh I almost forgot, on my way out of the office I ran into my orthodontist as he was walking in which was pretty funny.  He asked me how everything went and I told him about it all and he was just like ok tell him to call me after he does the presentation. The good part about that was I got to tell him about all the appointments that are set up and let him know the time frame.  Anyway here is the new list:

October 1st: Get impressions done at the surgeon's office.  I won't be meeting with him though.

October 31st:  Presentation by the surgeon, hearing all about the surgery (I jokingly asked them if I should wear a costume to this appointment haha). Hopefully, possibly, maybe I'll get a surgery date!

November 5th: Orthodontist appointment.  I believe he said this was basically the last appointment to make any final adjustments the surgeon wants done before the surgery.

My Surgery Projection: Mid December

So that's that!  Always good to have things to look forward to and I'm still thinking I'll have all this over with by next June or July.  Woohoo!