1 jaw or 2?

Well…more news. Some good, some less good, I suppose.

As I reported earlier, surgery has been pushed back and will not be during this summer. I’d originally heard late this fall, but after meeting with my surgeon yesterday, there’s a chance it could be as late as next February. Sigh…

Turns out there is very little that needs to be done orthodontically speaking. They’ve started a process called “slenderizing” on my lower teeth. (The fact that the name reminds me of something you do to meat makes me a touch nervous…) Basically they file between my lower front teeth with a sand-papery type of dental floss. It widens the gap between my apparently-too-large teeth, allowing them to then fit more closely together.

This process should only take two, maybe three months. The real humdinger is my jaw disc. It’s all over the place (explains the increased pain), and the surgeon doesn’t want to operate until it’s more stable. The catch is, there’s no “minimum wait” time in stabilizing the disc. Just because it seems stable after three months in a mouth piece doesn’t guarantee it will continue to be stable three months after that.

So we’re in a waiting game.

In lighter news, however, the surgeon told me yesterday that he thinks I might just need ONE-jaw surgery! I’m still letting my weary little brain wrap around this one. One jaw surgery changes everything for me. From the financial (a fraction of the cost because I won’t need to stay any nights in the hospital) to the recovery time (much less horrifying) to the outcome (not nearly as many facial fractures…meaning less change in my appearance). Like I said, my brain hasn’t fully absorbed this possibility yet.

This isn’t for sure yet, but it’s exciting enough to share. The surgeon said the braces seem to be doing more work at closing my bite than originally anticipated. Of course, we’ll have to see what happens when my disc stabilizes. Everything could change…or not.

That’s it for now. Other than a horribly painful day today (sigh…what’s new?), things are truckin’ along as always.