Day 140 - Expander nearly done with?

Happy 2010 everyone!

It's been a while! It's late, but hopefully everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's! It's a little weird posting on here once the braces are on. I feel that a lot of great stuff is happening to my teeth, but it happens so gradually that I don't feel like I need to post every week like I did back in the Spring of 2009 when I had my SARPE surgery. I mean, when I look at my teeth today compared with day 1 with my braces, the changes are HUGE I think, but it's happened so gradually that I haven't felt the need to post! I apologize for this, but even if that habit continues, my next surgery is going to get me to start posting again!

I had an appointment almost two weeks ago with Dr. Roy. She's pleased with the progress so far. They took an x-ray of my front teeth, and enough bone had formed between them that they were able to activate the brackets on my front teeth finally! The bottom wire's gauge was ramped up a couple of notches as well. So all in all, my bottom teeth and two front teeth were in some pain for a couple of days. But again, it's really peanuts compared to what I've experienced already!

The best news of the appointment was that my expander is almost ready to come out! It has now been almost 7 months since expansions have stopped, and almost a full YEAR since the expanded was first fitted into my mouth. The expander is going to be replaced by a type of retainer at my next appointment, which will be in late February (or almost EIGHT months post-expansion!!). This retainer will allow me to remove the appliance when I eat. I know I'm going to love the feel of the roof of my mouth so much that I'm not going to want to wear the retainer. I'd actually almost prefer to keep the expander in until they are 100% sure it can be removed with little to no relapse.

For those who don't know and would like to, I'm told the expanders for SARPE generally are removed six months after expansions are stopped. They have to leave the expander in as the palate's suture that gets broken in SARPE re-solidifies. If the expander is removed prematurely, then the two sides of the jaw will collapse on each other again, which would render a surgery and subsequent hideousness worthless. However, given that my expansions were so extreme (almost 70 activations, which is nearly three-quarters of an inch!.....in fact, two expanders were needed to complete the job because the screw on the first one was only long enough to go 40 activations on its own), they wanted to leave it in there for a while longer. Again, I'll be close to eight months once my next appointment comes. Maybe that's long enough? Who knows. If they're not sure though, I'd rather just keep it in to be safe rather than sorry.

Finally, the impending orthognathic surgery seems to be on track. Dr. Roy said that she may even have me prepped for it by the time her summer vacation comes along. Sounds great, this is ahead of schedule, but any summer surgery that happens will have to be after the wedding in July.

So I guess I'll update you again when the next appointment comes along. Maybe I'll be able to take a picture of the ROOF of my mouth sans-expander for the very first time in a year.

Take care,

Paul