Some background on my teeth

If things like teeth, braces, or whatever freak you out, skip this post.

Basically, my orthodontist (who is wonderful and fabulous) doesn't like my teeth. Since I'm going to have jaw surgery this summer and expect this topic to come up, here's the general background of those little white things in my mouth.

I have a weird under bite. Normally, when you say "under bite" people picture lower teeth that are in front of the upper teeth in the front. Although that is what my teeth look like right now, the orthodontist actually did that. Before the various metal contraptions that have been put in my mouth over the years, my upper front teeth were actually in front of the lower ones. The problem with my mouth is that my lower jaw is basically wider (not to mention off center) than my upper jaw.

So if you look at the sides of my mouth, all my life my lower teeth have been on the outsides of my upper teeth.

I had a series of retainers starting somewhere between 1st and 3rd grade, although I honestly don't remember when I started. These fixed things like the fact that one of my upper front baby teeth decided it liked me too much and wouldn't fall out, even when the grown up tooth had grown in behind it (for a little while, I literally had two teeth there...). Eventually, the dentist yanked it out and a few years later the orthodontist pushed it forward with a bright pink and purple splotchy retainer (is it bad I remember what colors I chose for it? The case was pink and purple marble colored...).

I don't remember what I had in 4th grade, although I'm sure I had something, but in 5th grade the real stuff started.

First they put in a metal band around the inside of my lower teeth to make sure nothing moved while they futzed with my upper teeth.

A few months later they gave me a palate expander which also had little rings on the front. The goal at this point was to beat my growth. Dr. H wanted to force my growth in a direction that wouldn't require surgery.

To do that, he gave me head gear. Not normal head gear, though. Reverse head gear.

My head gear had two lavender plates connected by a metal bar. One plate fit over my chin, the other on my forehead. The bar went down the center of my face. In front of my mouth was a cross bar. The cross bar was connect to those rings on my palate expander with elastics.

I think I had to wear this 12 hours a day for something like 6 months, maybe it was a year. I don't remember.

What I do remember, and I'm sure my whole 6th grade class remembers, is that if I slept in it, I'd wake up with it twisted sideways. So I had to wear it while I was awake.

I wore that stupid contraption to school all year.... Luckily it looked like a medieval torture device, so I mostly I just got sympathy.

I have a very high palate, so I never learned to talk properly with my palate expander. For 2 years, I never said one hard G properly. I can't describe the sound I made instead, but eventually Dr. H took pity on me. He took my palate expander and that little metal band thing out a couple of weeks early. There was no metal in my mouth at my Bat Mitzvah.

A week or two later, though, I got good old fashioned rail road track braces. That was the end of January in 7th grade.

Those braces were just on the top. For three years, that's all I had. They scooted upper teeth around and ignored the bottom.

Then in 10th grade, on the Friday of I think the second weekend of the musical (I don't *think* it was opening night...) they put in bottom braces too.

For another 2 years, they pushed things around but honestly didn't move much. Mostly, they just changed the elastics every month.

Sometime in January or so my senior year, they gave me elastics. This is when I started getting really really frustrated with my teeth. These elastics pulled my lower teeth forward. By March of 12th grade, I had a good old fashioned under bite.

Now I'm going to back track a little. Sometime in high school, the orthodontist decided we failed at beating my growth. My options were either surgery or lots of junk when I'm 40 because my teeth don't hit each other properly. We opted for surgery.

Between a lot of non teeth related things (like submitting things to insurance and stuff), my surgery didn't happen in 10th grade, 11th grade, or 12 grade.

One day in December 2009 (so 12th grade), I went to the orthodontist. I asked if there was any chance of not having braces at my senior prom.

Dr. H said I'd still have them.

At this point, I just broke down. I was convinced that I would have braces for the rest of my life. My children would get their braces off before me and I would probably be buried still wearing braces.

FINALLY the next June, after I had graduated and everything (so yes, my senior prom pictures have braces and an under bite.... Grrrrr....), we met with the surgeon again (we'd met him sometime when we first decided we'd do the surgery, but never went anywhere with it).

He said we might be able to do the surgery next December (that would be December 2010), depending on what method we decided to do and if my wisdom teeth were in the way of the surgery.

It turned out my lower right wisdom tooth would have to come out and would have to come out at least 6 months before the surgery.

So last December, my surgeon (who is fabulous and I think something of a perfectionist, since he insisted on taking out my tooth himself. Not having his staff do it or something, but doing it himself...) took out the tooth.

Rewinding back to August, my orthodontist told me that if we weren't going to be doing the surgery until next summer, we could take the braces off for the year.

A week before I left for college, they took my braces off. After 5 1/5 years of braces and 12 years of having some metal in my mouth with month long breaks between appliances, my mouth was utterly empty.

Of course, I have to have the braces on for the surgery (they need hooks on my teeth or something...), so I'm getting them put back on when I get home from school in May...

At some point, I'll explain exactly what it is that they'll be doing to me come my surgery date (beginning of July), but for now I'll just say that on that day I will stop having an under bite of any kind and through July and a good chunk of August I think I'll be eating lots of things I don't have to chew...