Bad News From The Orthodontist

Before I even get started about today’s endeavor let me give you a little bit of background information. When I was younger, around 10 or 11 I was told by my dentist that I essentially have the same problem that Jay Leno has in that my chin is or was going to be larger than normal. Other than going in to have surgery there isn’t much that can be done. I wasn’t too worried about this and to be honest even today it doesn’t bother me.

But, I was also given news that because of the way that my jaw was growing that it would be advised to look into surgery to correct it. However, my orthodontist that I saw back then also said that because I was so young that surgery wasn’t a viable option considering I was still growing. So instead of having the surgery back then we decided to just wait it out.

Fast forward to the present

I’ve never had great teeth and I hardly ever smile because of it even though it isn’t a big deal to me. Yesterday I went into the dentist to get my teeth cleaned since it has been almost a year since the last time I had them cleaned. Of course I haven’t been super strict on brushing my teeth and flossing every night like you should be doing so I got the whole lecture on brushing and flossing and how important each of them are.

After the cleaning my dentist came in to check up on my before I headed out. A quick glance over of my teeth from him and he recommends a few things ( I can’t tell you exactly what they were because I wasn’t listening that closely anyways ). He recommends that I speak with an orthodontist about the problems that I currently have. Before leaving the office, I speak with one of the women behind the desk and she schedules my next cleaning appointment.

She also calls up the orthodontist to schedule a consultation with him and somehow they can fit me in the next day ( today ). I head in this morning for my appointment scheduled at 11:30am. I get there and being a new patient I have to fill out their bullshit paperwork and useless information that I don’t think they really need. Stuff like my brother’s name, how old he is, what school I went to and so forth.

Plus, I actually showed up ON TIME for my appointment but I don’t get called in until about 20 minutes later. Funny how it seems that anybody in the medial field has fucking horrible time management skills and is hardly ever on time.

After having pictures taken of my teeth and talking with the orthodontist ( for whatever reason has to repeat about every 5th word that he says 2-3 times ) I find out that I need braces and will probably end up wearing them for around 2.5 years. This wouldn’t be such a big deal but also because of my previous issue with my jaw I also need both lower and upper jaw surgery to fully correct the issue.

Apparently, my top jaw is set too far back and needs to be pushed forwards while my bottom jaw is too far forwards and needs to be pushed back. Plus, my top jaw needs to be widened and my bottom jaw needs to be rotated so that my teeth sit level with each other. Because I was too young back then to have the surgery ( and have it be successful ) my jaw progressively got worth as I aged. There is more to this story as well, I also need my wisdom teeth pulled.

The orthodontist says that I need to have my wisdom teeth pulled right away in order to give them time to heal before they perform the surgery should I decide to go forward with it. I was told that after the wisdom teeth are pulled I would get braces and wear those for about 8-12 months and then I would have the surgery to fix my jaws. Afterwards, I would still have to be in braces for about 6 more months to ensure that everything works out correctly.

I always knew that my teeth were messed up but I wasn’t aware just how bad it was. When I bite down only 2 of my teeth are actually touching leaving a gap between all of the other ones. Which consequently makes it very hard to actually “bite” something into pieces. I guess this is also why I have always consumed bigger pieces of food since it was just too much work to cut them up into smaller pieces or try to bite them into smaller chunks.

It’s all about the money

The braces are going to end up costing around $6000 and the surgery itself is going to range around $20,000. That is just for the surgery, not including the hospital stay and everything else that goes along with it. Not to mention that the surgery itself isn’t covered under dental insurance, it is considered a medical procedure.

All in total probably looking at around $30,000 to have everything worked on and fixed.

Thoughts and decisions

I wouldn’t say that im self concious about my smile or the way that my teeth look. I just never smile hardly because I know it doesn’t look good.

The jaw alignment problem has had a considerable impact on how I eat food though as I have either been forced to place food in the back of my mouth to actually bite off a piece or use my tongue to hold it up against my top teeth and try to bite it into pieces that way. I will say that it does take some practice to get it working right but I can never bite off a piece of steak considering your tongue really isn’t strong enough as your teeth Olympus DS 40 digital voice recorder.

I am now forced with the decisions of having my wisdom teeth pulled, getting braces as well as having major surgery on both my upper and lower jaws to have the alignment corrected. I’ve contemplated just having my wisdom teeth pulled and getting braces and just keep living with the alignment issues. While i’m not afraid of the surgery it will just be a major pain in the ass not to mention the amount of money that it is going to require.

Maybe I could just knock out all my teeth and have dentures permanently implanted into my mouth? Seems like it would solve all my problems and would probably be a lot easier and cost a lot less money.