The Date

27/02/2016

I came home from college a few weeks ago to find a letter addressed to me. It was the date for my double jaw correction surgery - Friday 18th March 2016! Anyone who has had or will be having jaw surgery will understand the importance of this letter. Just as I do every time I visit or hear anything from my orthodontist team, I then continued to read blogs about people who have experienced this surgery. This lead me to deciding to start my own blog, to help anyone else who is going through the same thing.

My name is Sophie and I am 17. I have a class 3 malocclusion - basically this means a severe underbite. I have had it all my life, and although it has grown progressively worse throughout my teenage years, I can not remember a time in my life where I have had a correct jaw position. I started treatment at 11 years old when I was referred to Worthing hospital under the maxillofacial ward. Originally, I was given the choice of whether to have just braces to try and correct my bite, or the surgery. However, as I got older, and my underbite got more and more severe, the option became obvious to me.

In 2012, I had braces put on my upper set of teeth, to correct my awful teeth alignment. This, at the time, was mostly for cosmetic reasons - My two front teeth stuck out and the rest of them were very misaligned. I refused to laugh, smile or eat without my hand covering my mouth. I only had these first set of braces on for 6 months as my teeth moved pretty quickly. 

In July of 2014, I had braces put on my bottom teeth in readiness for my operation. About a month later, I had my bottom wisdom teeth removed, as they would have been in the way during the surgery. Because my wisdom teeth hadn't fully developed yet, I had quite deep holes at the back of my jaw, which didn't take as long to heal as I expected. This was the first time I was old enough to remember being put under general anaesthetic, and I can recall waking up feeling completely disorientated. Having my wisdom teeth out is the only experience I can relate to being similar to the operation I am soon to have. I remember hating the feeling of a swollen face, which I think will be something that I will struggle with most during my recovery (and the fact I won't be able to eat anything for several weeks!!)

A few months later I had braces put on my top teeth once again, to allow both sets of teeth to straighten into the correct position so that my surgeon could use my teeth as a guide during the operation. Since then, I had the usual orthodontics appointments; check ups, braces tightened etc.

Like most people who have had this operation, the estimated date kept getting pushed back later and later. I was originally told I could have the operation in the summer of 2014, however it soon became evident this would not be possible. I was then told summer 2015, and then October 2015, then December 2015 etc. However I now have the official date in writing! For the last few weeks, I have been very worried that the date of the op would be changed. However my orthodontist told me that the likelihood of the date changing is very small, which was very reassuring to me.

My braces were tightened for the last time pre op on January 29th 2016. Since then I have had 4 appointments. On February 5th, my appointment was short and sweet. I went in to have one set of moulds done (which is an absolutely horrible experience by the way!) On February 12th I ended up spending 2 hours in hospital having various X-rays, photographs, moulds, a frame fitted, jaw measurements etc. I then went in again on the 16th as I had a phone call to say they needed one more set of moulds. At this appointment, I also saw a computer generated image of what I will most likely look like post op, which was very strange for me to look at! I was looking at a photo of myself, but half of my face looked completely different, obviously I already knew and have been expecting this, but seeing a picture was just very odd!

On Tuesday 1st March, I had my last orthodontic appointment pre op. This was to check the moulds of my jaw fit together nicely. The head of the MFU came along to check everything was ready and was very happy with the moulds. I also had my surgical hooks fitted on to my brace which feels really weird against my gums! Then I got to see the before and after photos of my jaw again from the side profile, and I could really see a difference!

I now have no more orthodontic appointments left! The next update will be on Thursday 10th March, after my pre operative assessment!

Thanks for reading!
- Sophie