Braces Adjustment

February 2014

I had my braces adjusted on Monday.  The Orthodontist popped off and reapplied a couple brackets and upped the wire strength on the bottom teeth.  Not too bad actually.  I'm back to eating soft foods, but not baby food... Thank goodness!

But every time I go back to the orthodontist or tell someone new why I have braces in my 30's, I start the whole anxiety spiral over the surgery all over again.  Its not just that I have a black hole in my calendar between September and January where I can't make plans (which IS really annoying!). Its more the thought of someone cutting up my face terrifies me and that I am voluntarily letting them.  Sure its for quality life, decreasing chronic pain, and ensuring that I have good nutrition by being able to chew food in the future... however this surgery is not like an emergency appendectomy where the doctors go to work and I am not sitting around anticipating it for 2 years.  

So as a habit, after I start getting anxious I scour the web to find someone who had had this same procedure and how they survived/thrived with it.  Most of the videos on youtube.com  that I find are done by ~17 yr old girls in the UK who had a severe under-bite, which is close to what I'm expecting but not quite my problem or my recovery path.  I found this one (below) today.  

The video is designed by an Australian surgeon, but the video is of a girl who has very, very similar bite occlusion and jaw pain as I do. And the positive results she seems to of found are reassuring. It reminds me as to the reasons that I am torturing myself (and draining my bank account)!  So if anyone reading this is wondering why I am doing all this work and willing putting up with all this discomfort check out the video:

PS. It also inspires me to do a video blog.  Don't worry I won't torture you all this far out, but I'll probably record a few pre- and post- surgery videos.