Gap closing.

Two updates:

1) They have changed my wire on my top teeth, which has closed the gap.
2) Braces have been fitted on my bottom teeth in order to straighten them in preperation for next years operation.

I really cannot wait until this is all over now, one step closer to an awesome smile! The second operation should correct my bottom jawline (which as you can see is slanted), by making my jawline more symmetrical and pushed up.

Another restless night - post expansion

More of a personal blog entry if anything:

I can't sleep yet again.

I must say one of the hardest things about this whole experience (aside from the general discomfort and pain), you realise how boring things can get, simply because you don't have the energy to do much; the jaw is still healing afterall.
Much of my day is spent listening to music (John Coltrane, Jeff Buckley, Muse, George Benson at the moment), sleeping, reading a book every now and again, surfing the net, staying in contact with existing friends by means of facebook/phone/in person (the latter - for those currently in London) etc.

Now, this is all great, especially when you have people around you that really care about you, and go to extreme lengths to show it. (during times like these, you really realise who your true friends are for example.) But it becomes pretty mundane after a while. Life becomes boring.

In some ways this can also be a very frustrating experience, as I know if I were fit and healthy at the moment I would be travelling right now; socialising; meeting new people of all walks of life. With this not being the case at the moment I have had to turn down the opportunity to travel to Spain, France and Dubai this summer. That was what I had lined up, along with chilling with my friends over here. As my initial expectations were that I would have a speedy recovery.

I guess this is again pretty age dependent, at 23 years, whilst facing the prospect of going back to University in a month time, it is an inconvienience simply because ideally I wanted to feel "refreshed" before my final year.

On a positive note however, I know that it is best to get this sorted out now then later on, but still I must say in the journey so far; coming to terms with how monotonous things can get is harder then it seems, especially when you just know you could be having a great summer as opposed to being bedridden.

This definently has to be the toughest battle mentally one has to face during this whole process. Saying that, I am confident that I will come out stronger by the end of it and in that respect this is a blessing in disguise.

Weight Loss - Post op.

Another blog entry for those individuals about to have this done:



As you can see I have lost a lot of weight around my face and neck area, this was a photo of me pre operation:



That aside I have had comments that the region surrounding my upper jaw area is looking fuller. I don't know if it is down to the swelling or if it is actually fuller. Aside from internal changes, I just can't tell.

I would say since the procedure I have lost a stone, or in the metric system 14 pounds of bodyweight. To prevent me from losing anymore weight I have been supplimenting with a weight gainer, but to be honest I don't have much of an appetite anymore due to the discomfort of not being able to eat anything solid for a while.

I am expecting to hit the gym 8 weeks from now to regain my lost muscle mass. But its all good, in the mean time, inside jokes with regards to looking like David Blaine have been made, funny shit!



Additional information:

Weight gainer I am currently supplimenting with can be found here:

http://www.in-trim.co.uk/ProLabNLarge2.jpg

Pain - Sleepless Nights

A blog entry for those individuals about to have this done:

Today I had a great day, had my closest around me, and on top of that had a good friend from out of town unexpectedly visit me. Not to mention, many of my closest friends not in London have been sending me spontanious (yet) funny text messages out of the blue, or have generally been taking an active interest. Don't you just love them?!

It is now 5am as I write this, I am unable to sleep yet again due to the pain. It is a week since expansion has stopped. To cope, I've just taken 2 painkillers to deal with it. I imagine the pain is a positive thing, as it probably means that my upper jaw is now healing. However, the area around my upper jaw seems to be swelling, with there being general discomfort in the surrounding region. The pain that hits this region is normally quite sharp, but not continious, though swelling has made my skin feel irritated & sore. I think the humid whether adds to the irritation.

As of yet the gap between my front two teeth left from expanding has not closed.

The healing process begins

After a trip to my orthodontist today, he was very happy with my progress and has decided that it was time to stop expanding my upper jaw. As it stands the total amount of upper jaw expansion sits at 7 mm:

(before)



(final expansion)



To ensure that the top jawline does not retract back to its previous position, my top brace has been locked with cement:



My upper jaw measurements (to deduce how much expansion is needed) is done in the following way (click on the image below to enlarge):



Now here is how a perfect bite to compare the above photo with, looks like:



If you compare both photos you will see that in the photo where the bite is perfect,the canine is directly ABOVE the first lower left premolar. And as my lower jaw is slanted (this will be corrected with my second procedure next year), he has approximently measured with that in mind how much expansion to do. This is because my second operation purpose is to not only close the gap, but to also create bite symmetry. My orthodontist did this by measuring the width of both upper and lower jaw to see if they are the same width, as well as using visual techniques to formulate a calculated guess in preperation for next years op.

Also as you can see, from going from a V shape (and I WISH I had taken before photos of my upper arch to show you), my upper jawline is now being widened so that it forms a nice curved "U" shape. To reiterate, the area between the gap is where my jaw is split in two, this area will take two months for new bone to fill the void left by the expansion. This should in turn close the gap that has formed between my two front teeth. For now however I still remain housebound and on a liquid diet, and I have lost immense amounts of weight which is the least to say very depressing due to my height. This and not being able to socialise due to spitting, eating food without being able to chew, and other activities involving my mouth due to the strain it puts on my upper jaw is equally depressing. Close family and friends have kept my spirits high through these difficult times, that and the fact that I can see progression has been made. My next checkup with my orthodontic consultant is in two weeks time, in the mean time I have been advised against doing any physical activity, I was hoping to start hitting the gym again in order to regain my lost weight.

A sign for things to come, when my upper jaw is strong enough, I will be wearing a light weight brace to keep my upper jaw in shape, rather then the bulky heavyweight one that I am wearing now. The battle now is to maintain the shape of the upper jaw, as it will as stated previously would want to retract back to its previous narrow shape. As a contingency plan, we have over-expanded the upper jaw in the event that this happens.

Post Operation - SARPE

Updated 28/07/2009 -

After an 8 hour wait during the day, my blood pressure was checked and consultations with my surgeon and his team to tie up any lose ends I or they may have were done. My operation finally commenced. It was a 3 hour operation, and a massive success.

Post operation I slept a lot, and felt very swollen. I was given a lot of painkillers during this period to cope with the pain; I couldn't speak, and was given antibiotics to deal with the swelling and to avoid infections. My nose was heavily bleeding, my mouth would fill up with blood and often I would be spitting blood out, and as for food my diet from this point on would be a liquid diet. I was eventually discharged from hospital a day later following a post op assessment:



As you can see I look battered, but my spirits remained high for the first few days because I was happy that the ball had finally moved for me. The pain of waiting four years was probably much worse then the physical pain I had been enduring at this point.

There was extensive swelling around my nose, and my upper jaw region, smiling was hard, and I was put onto a diet of mashed potatoes, soup and other mashed food. The swelling finally subsided after a week despite looking absolutely perplexed:



However to measure how wide my upper jaw was becoming, a gap forming in my front two teeth was used as a benchmark:



The gap here was 1mm (click on the image to enlarge). You can tell that my nose is still pretty swollen, this eventually subsided (Note: I am unable to smile as it is painful):




After a week and a half of twisting my SARPE brace:



My jaw at this point has been widened by 2mm. Smiling unfortunantly was still painful by this point, or any rigourous mouth movement for that matter. Weight loss had fully gone under way by his point, a diet of potatoes was not cutting it. I noticed the loss of weight on my neck, and face. (see my latest post) Also throughout (and even now), physically I felt very tired if doing anything for long periods of time, and the jaw pains made sleeping, eating very difficult.



The jaw here has been expanded by 5mm, after twisting the brace 3 times a day with the key shown in an earlier blog entry. This means that my upper jaw has been expanded by 5 mm.

UPDATE:

This is currently my upper jaw after 6mm expansion (as signified by the gap), you can see now that there is a perfect curve forming in my upper jaw, and my smile is now starting to look like a proper smile minus the gap, the stupid face and the teeth not touching. Amazing progression from this - where you can see my top teeth were inwards:









Ha. Special mention goes to my EVIL big sister for pointing this out - rock and roll!

A note to others having this done:

1) Brushing your teeth is an absolute nightmare as your top jaw is very sensitive. Often food would get trapped in my brace brackets, resulting in me doing an half arsed effort with my brush because of the pain; meaning that the food will remain stuck. Eventually, you'll have to push through the pain barrier in order to get over this. Otherwise you'll risk an infection or plaque build up.

2) Often you will spit blood out.

3) I have lost 14 pounds of body-weight and it is showing on my face and my body considerably. Living on a diet of liquids takes it tole.

4) Tiredness and fatigue is constantly in the background. Simple tasks such as playing computer games is hard work. So do not challenge anyone for money in a comp game! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! :D

5) Nights are restless due to the pain. Face goes through periods of swelling during the night as you rest your top jaw on the pillow. You will generally feel like shit.

6) The boredom hits you hard after a while, psychologically and this is an age dependent thing, but at 23 it does kill me from time to time that I am not out there with my friends partying, rather I am housebound due to this. So it should come to no suprise if you start self pitying yourself sulking about why you and not your buddies are having this done!

Note: As a word of advise, if you ever feel like this, try and:

a) Visualise the end result. It is important to remember why you have put yourself through this in the first place, as it will remind you of the bigger picture!

b) Use this as a learning experience to mature you mentally; afterall what you are undergoing here is a hardcore life changing experience (one that many will not experience or be able to relate with) and lastly:

c) Spend time with those closest to you and talk to them about it. People that you can trust and care about you. I strongly advise NOT getting this procedure done if you are living alone without a support structure surrounding you; no man is an Island.

7) Check-ups are done weekly with your orthodontist. You are unable to work out as it may increase blood pressure in case you are wondering, which can interfare with the healing process. Actually there is no healing done at the moment because my upper jaw is still being expanded. The jaw will heal once expansion has stopped. So I will approximently say it will take a good 2 months before you are anywhere near healing considerably.

8) The soreness will not subside until expansion has stopped and the real healing process has begun.

9) Travelling anywhere is a NO NO, I had plans to travel to Dubai and then France but it is in tatters at the moment.

10) The gap will close with the upper jaw healing process. When you widen your upper jaw a massive gap in the middle where the initial surgical incision that was done to split your upper jaw becomes wider. During the healing process, a blood clot is formed there, and the cells within your blood form new bone to fill the void left by the incision(and expansion). As this happens, fibers in your upper jaw causes your teeth to realign themselves naturally closing the gap like magic!

11) You wont be able to smile and forget about being able to kiss anyone! :)

The night before the operation - SARPE

My operation was scheduled for 1st of July, I was psyched up and ready for it. I was excited because after waiting for four years it has become a reality. On the day however it was cancelled due to a lack of hospital ward beds. Following this, I was extremely pissed off due to my history with my trust and I immediately felt they were fucking me around again. I tried to get hold of my surgeon that day, couldn't get through to him that day or the next few days, rather I was put through to a middle man that had no clue on what was going on either.

Very down and frustrated at the beuracratic nature of the NHS, I was strongly contemplating getting my local MP involved again, as I didn't want to face the prospect of waiting until September to get operated on due to university commitments. That and now I wanted to just get the ball moving as I have another operation on my bottom jaw to look forward too next summer. Any further delays meant that this would be prolonged. But before doing this, I made sure that I found out what my rights were in the event of a cancelled operation. In my search for viable answers,I found the following information from the NHS web-site:

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2563.aspx?CategoryID=68&SubCategoryID=162

Armed with my rights, I decided to give my hospital a bit of time to rectify things before doing anything drastic. Luckily, my operation was rescheduled for the following week and on July the 8th I was operated on.

The night before my operation I was very nervous about what laid ahead, I had heard stories of not being able to talk, excessive weight loss, swelling, and pain pain pain during my research of the operation. That and there were risks in this operation such as losing your sense of taste or losing sensitivity in your upper jaw due to the chance of ones nerve endings being damaged in the process. I completely felt as though I was venturing into the unknown at this point.

Luckily for me, in the ward bed next to me was a guy who had his arm operated on jacked on morphine. He proved to be a great ward room mate and really helped me out more then the nurses in the hospital. He showed me around the place, offered to get me food and gave me any assistance that I needed if the nurses were not around. He reassured me that everything would be ok.

...Still the night before the operation I felt uneasy, couldn't sleep due to a mixture of excitement and fear that something may go wrong. Afterall they are operating on my face here! Throughout this period I was heavily texting a friend Luke Shaw Harvey a fellow guy who is going through the same thing, and he was great help throughout by telling me exactly what to expect as he has been through SARPE.

A BIG THANKS mate!

The night before my operation, my last solid meal was fries and a chicken burger. I joked with friends that this is the equivilent of going onto death row, where the prisoner is spoilt for choice with regards to food, prior to being executed.

For those about to go through this procedure, your blood pressure will be checked and you will be told not to eat 12 hours before your operation as this will ensure that you don't puke blood up during your operation.